reviews, document-based approvals, and ceremonial briefings do not ac- celerate delivery; they delay it. Worse, they create the illusion that delivery is happening when decisions are stalled, and blockers persist. Leaders must also stop inserting themselves solely at predefined con- trol points. Waiting for a milestone to engage is too late. Instead, leaders should integrate with teams regularly through demos, planning sessions, or team syncs to provide timely direction and unblock issues as they arise. Everyone Has a Role Modern software delivery is a team sport. Cybersecurity profes- sionals, test organizations, users, finance officials, and legal advisors must all see themselves as enablers, not reviewers. Their value lies not in responding to mistakes after the fact but in helping programs move faster, more securely, and with greater mis- sion alignment. For instance, cybersecurity pro- fessionals can work side by side with developers to tune real-time vulner- ability scans within the DevSecOps pipeline. Testers can build automated regression suites to validate features nightly. Contracting officers can structure agreements using flexible
In agile, doing means enabling. It means committing to work alongside the team, not after the fact. The most successful programs in the next fight will not be the ones with the most oversight. They will be the ones where leaders make themselves accountable.
contract line item numbers and incre- mental funding to accommodate iter- ative delivery. And end users, whether from the field or back office, can par- ticipate in sprint demos and help pri- oritize backlogs to ensure relevance. Conclusion— Doing Means Enabling “We need doers, not reviewers” is not a rejection of oversight, it is a rejection of disengaged leadership. In agile delivery, particularly within gov- ernment and military programs, suc- cess depends on leaders who embed with their teams, make timely deci- sions, and take shared ownership of outcomes. Senior executives, general officers, and acquisition authorities must stop treating software pro- grams like compliance checklists and start participating as members of de- livery teams. This does not mean they must write code. But it does mean they must understand the sprint cadence, be present during key team events, and act in real time to remove block- ers. Cybersecurity leaders should in- tegrate reviews into the pipeline, not outside of it. PMs must defend the team’s tempo and build structures that support iterative delivery. And senior leaders must shift from com- manding from a distance to contribut- ing from within. In agile, doing means enabling. It means committing to work alongside the team, not after the fact. The most successful programs in the next fight will not be the ones with
the most oversight. They will be the ones where leaders make themselves accountable. It is time for more doers and fewer reviewers. KURODA is a professor of Program Manage- ment at the Warfighting Acquisition Universi- ty. He has led major Army software initiatives, served as Division Chief at the Army Software Engineering Center, and advised on complex electronic warfare programs. He has held ex- ecutive roles in commercial software devel- opment and retired from the U.S. Army as a senior intelligence analyst. He holds degrees in liberal arts and information systems, is certified in advanced program management, and is a graduate of PMT-401, PMT-402, and the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. The author can be contacted at david.kuroda@dau.edu . The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of War. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
Related Resources • ACQ 1700 Agile for Acquisition Team Members (Course) • Basic Agile for Senior Leaders Playlist (Playlist) • SWE 2031 What Agile Means for the Warfighting Acquisition Workforce? (Online Training) • SWE 0023 Agile Architecture Application (Online Training)
32 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | November-December 2025
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