The A-10 Thunderbolt II​ Agile Software​ Development Story​

October, 2024

The October 2024 tech talk was presented by David R Webb

Abstract

In 2019, the A-10 Operational Flight Program team at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, made the transition from a strict waterfall development and release process to an agile approach based on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®).  Five years later, the team has morphed its process to a hybrid of many approaches, keeping those practices that worked, while changing or abandoning those that did not. This has resulted in a reduction in turnaround time from idea to delivery – which began at more than four years – to only four months now. This presentation will introduce the A-10 OFP team, review what an OFP is, describe the current version of the Hill team’s processes, and discuss the lessons learned from this venture.

About the Presenter 

David R Webb is a Process Analyst at NetCentric, LLC, an ASRC Federal company. He is currently working as an Agile coach to improve the engineering processes of the A-10 Operational Flight Program team in the 309th Software Engineering Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Prior to this assignment, Dave worked as a government project management and process improvement specialist with 309 SWEG. He has nearly four decades of technical, program management, and process improvement experience on Air Force software. Dave has served as a certified Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Agilist. He has also been authorized by the Software Engineering Institute as an instructor for the Personal Software Process, as well as a Team Software Process coach. He has worked as an Air Force manager, SEPG member, systems software engineer, and test engineer. He is a frequent contributor to technical journals and symposiums, and he holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Brigham Young University.

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