Tagline: Real technical oversight happens at the code level.

Abstract:
Defense program offices managing software-intensive programs operate with a structural visibility gap: the technical risk accumulating inside contractor codebases is invisible under current oversight regimes. Schedule status comes from contractor Agile ceremonies. Quality assessments come from contractor demos. By the time the PMO sees evidence of a problem, it has already compounded into a cost or schedule crisis, the same pattern that produced $4B+ overruns on programs like AEGIS Combat System and ECSS.

DoDI 5000.87 created the Software Acquisition Pathway and made clear that program offices are expected to exercise active technical oversight, but provided almost no guidance on what that looks like in practice for non-technical PMO staff. This talk fills that gap.

Drawing on hands-on experience with contractor-delivered defense codebases, this session presents a practical framework for code-level oversight that requires no programming knowledge to operate. Attendees will see what objective, repository-level delivery visibility looks like, how AI-generated daily summaries give non-technical product owners and their project managers real situational awareness of what contractors are actually building, and how maintainability scoring creates enforceable acceptance criteria, analogous to what Nessus did for cybersecurity compliance, that can be embedded in contract language today.

The talk includes live demonstrations showing how PMOs can gain objective visibility into contractor-produced code, including maintainability, code ownership concentration, duplication, and areas of hidden technical debt. These examples show how the current visibility gap creates measurable delivery risk and how PMOs can close it using practical steps already available within their existing acquisition authority.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify the 3 failure modes that emerge when PMOs rely on contractor self-reporting as their primary source of technical truth
• Understand how repository-level delivery monitoring translates complex engineering activity into actionable summaries for non-technical acquisition leaders
• Apply a maintainability scoring framework as a contractual acceptance criterion, defining what "good enough to deliver" means in measurable terms
• Recognize the specific contract vehicles and program phases where code-level oversight has the highest return on investment
• Leave with draft contract language and oversight process checkpoints ready for immediate PMO application

Target Audience:
Program managers, deputy PMs, contracting officers, and DCMA representatives managing software development contracts under the Software Acquisition Pathway. Particularly relevant to programs using time-and-materials or cost-plus contracts with embedded contractor development teams.

Preferred Session Duration:
50 minutes including Q&A.