U.S. Space Force - Platform Delivery Modernization

The impact

MVP cycle time: 6 months to 2 weeks (92% faster). First app cleared Operational Acceptance and reached production. Trust restored across engineering, security, and leadership.

A stalled 20+ project portfolio began delivering on a reliable 2-week cadence. Seven roadmap iterations shipped across contract deliverable periods, each aligned to Space Force mission outcomes rather than internal politics. Cross-contract coordination established across 3 SBIR partnerships.

How we got there

When I arrived, the Capabilities Development Division was stuck. MVPs took more than six months to reach production. Contractors were juggling 15+ priorities without a roadmap. Leadership was drowning in one-off asks. Tooling was scattered across Teams, Mattermost, Linear, GitLab, ServiceNow, Confluence, SharePoint, and written notebooks. Teams were working hard, but few could articulate what was actually in flight or why it mattered.

I started by auditing every existing story across every team, consolidating scope, and rewriting the backlog from scratch with structured templates and clear acceptance criteria. This was not a quick exercise. It meant sitting with engineers, program leads, and civil service stakeholders to understand what each piece of work was really trying to accomplish, then sequencing it against mission outcomes instead of internal politics.

The structural bottleneck was Operational Acceptance. OA was designed to ensure production safety, but in practice it had become a gate that blocked continuous delivery entirely. No app had ever made it through. I coached the Nimbus Weather eBoard team through Discovery & Framing, Inception, and MVP, then worked with CDD leadership and Range Management to clear Nimbus for production without the traditional OA process. That breakthrough unblocked the path to continuous delivery for every app team that followed.

I designed a 3-phase org transformation strategy (Forming/Storming, Norming, Performing) with specific deliverables, outcomes, and people growth targets for each phase. I introduced async check-ins, roadmap threads, and decision logs that cut meeting bloat while improving visibility. I built outcome-based roadmaps framed as Problem/Opportunity, Test, Outcome, Impact and iterated them across 7 CLIN deliverable periods. Each iteration gave stakeholders real evidence of progress and a shared language for prioritization.

The work extended beyond delivery mechanics. I facilitated strategic alignment sessions with the SLD Tech Director, coordinated across Rise8, Metronome, BeastCode, and other SBIR partners, and designed the K8 Playbook, Rise8's internal product training curriculum spanning Levels 0-7. I operated at 6am ET daily from the Pacific timezone to pair with my team and align with CDD's eastern schedule.

What this built

• A delivery engine that runs on outcomes, not checklists. Teams ship on a 2-week cadence with clean backlogs, scoped sprints, and priorities grounded in mission need and engineering feasibility.
• A cleared path to production. The OA reform established a precedent for continuous delivery in a security-sensitive environment, unblocking every app team after Nimbus.
• A repeatable transformation playbook. The phased org maturity model, coaching frameworks, and delivery rituals are now codified for future portfolio leads to inherit.