Navy’s tech playbook serves as ‘toolkit’ for rest of government

Navy Chief Technology Officer Justin Fanelli (far right) speaking at the SAP Public Sector Summit on Oct. 15. Photo courtesy of GovExec

The U.S. Navy dramatically upped its use of pilot tech programs, shuttered old technology systems and moved into the modern tech arena—and it is sharing its lessons learned from along the way.

Frank Konkel and Christian Robles

The IBM Center for the Business of Government and Foundation for American Innovation published a playbook for enterprise IT modernization over the summer based largely on the U.S. Navy’s successful framework for technology acquisition.

“Basically, they observed something we were doing — we were getting a handful of wins on common problems, and other agencies started copying it, and we started sharing what we were doing,” Navy Chief Technology Officer Justin Fanelli said on the sidelines of the SAP Public Sector Summit on Oct. 14 in Washington, D.C.

“They asked us, ‘What are you doing that’s different from other pockets that aren’t moving as fast?’ And essentially, we said, ‘Oh, we have a kit for that because we moved from the world of build-everything-yourself to a fast adopter,’” Fanelli said.

The aforementioned kit—the Navy’s framework for technology acquisition — became the basis for a roundtable discussion that culminated in the playbook. It gives three recommendations to agencies for modernizing technology systems.

The first recommendation is to understand the systems agencies operate and how they communicate with each other. The playbook says IT mapping best occurs by mapping processes, data and finances.

“To do modernization that actually benefits the portfolio, you need to have a picture of that portfolio going in,” Daniel Chenok, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, told Nextgov/FCW .

The second recommendation is to measure pilots against existing systems they are meant to replace with standardized outcome measures. The Navy picked user time saved or lost, adaptability, cost per user, user experience and operational resilience metrics to assess technology, the report notes.

Fanelli said that prior to 2025, the Navy was only executing a few true technology pilots each year. That year, the Navy increased its pilot use by ten times to about 25, and in 2026 has “dozens and dozens” of ongoing pilots on everything from AI, hosting hardware, edge computing and autonomy functions to nuanced technology like float sensors.

“It’s a pretty wide scope,” Fanelli said.

The department, he said, is now communicating with the same tech terminology and more transparently with each other about ongoing pilot work, reducing duplicative, siloed efforts.

In addition, the Navy has found the private sector to be a willing partner in piloting its commercial technology. Both decisions have allowed the Navy to increase its pilot proclivity without breaking the bank or budget.

“Instead of using only government money to do piloting, there are just way more private sector companies who are using their own funding to do pilots to say, ‘Hey, this is already a pretty mature capability.’ (Then), We only have to fund the last five yards (to score a touchdown),” Fanelli said.

Several pilot programs are now critical to department operations. For example, Project Dynamis was piloted by the Navy and U.S. Marine Corps in September 2025 to close the “sensor-to-shooter” gap. The program now deploys critical software like the Maven Smart System to major commands, including the Marine expeditionary forces, and is the command-and-control program of record for the Marine Corps.

So far, Fanelli said ten pilots have transitioned to enterprise services or programs of record, and there is a queue of more than two dozen potential use cases.

“Those pilots have converted into, in many cases, designated enterprise services or programs of record,” Fanelli said. “So instead of hundreds of competing things that float around forever, we're now converting pilots into higher value and higher-impact enterprise services.”

“That is allowing us to cattle-drive legacy [technology],” Fanelli added, referencing Operation Cattle Drive, the Navy’s strategic initiative to identify, consolidate, and retire redundant, insecure and outdated IT systems.

Operation Cattle Drive demands structured divestments from old and outdated technology, and serves as the impetus for the playbook's third recommendation: to adopt an “acquire while divesting” strategy to ensure agencies do not layer new technology on old systems.

Agencies could meet the strategy by requiring divestment planning in solicitations, incorporating divestment planning in project planning and including retirement milestones in funding plans, the playbook says.

“There’s an old [President Ronald] Reagan quote summarized: ‘The closest thing to life everlasting is being a government program,’” Fanelli said. “How are you actually getting rid of things?”

The playbook builds on recent work from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, including a digital modernization implementation framework and an IT modernization roadmap .

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海军首席技术官贾斯汀·法内利（最右）于10月15日在SAP公共部门峰会上发表讲话。照片由GovExec提供。

美国海军大幅增加了试点技术项目的使用，关闭了旧的技术系统，并迈入了现代技术领域——而且它正在分享在此过程中吸取的经验教训。

弗兰克·康克尔和克里斯蒂安·罗伯斯

IBM 政府商业中心和美国创新基金会在夏季发布了一本企业 IT 现代化指南，该指南主要基于美国海军成功的技术采购框架。

“基本上，他们观察到了我们正在做的一些事情——我们在解决一些常见问题上取得了一些成功，其他机构开始效仿，我们也开始分享我们的做法，”海军首席技术官贾斯汀·法内利10月14日在华盛顿特区举行的SAP公共部门峰会间隙表示。

“他们问我们，‘你们的做法与其他发展速度较慢的领域有何不同？’我们基本上回答说，‘哦，我们有一套工具包，因为我们已经从一切都自己动手构建的世界转变为快速采用的世界，’”法内利说道。

上述工具包——海军的技术采购框架——成为圆桌讨论的基础，最终形成了这份行动手册。手册向各机构提出了三项关于技术系统现代化的建议。

第一条建议是了解各机构的运行系统以及它们之间的沟通方式。操作手册指出，IT 系统映射的最佳方法是映射流程、数据和财务状况。

IBM 政府业务中心执行主任 Daniel Chenok 告诉 Nextgov/FCW：“要进行真正有利于投资组合的现代化，你需要了解该投资组合的现状。”

第二项建议是，使用标准化的结果指标来衡量飞行员相对于现有系统（即他们计划取代的系统）的性能。报告指出，海军选择了用户节省或损失的时间、适应性、单用户成本、用户体验和运行弹性等指标来评估技术。

法内利表示，在2025年之前，海军每年只开展少数真正的技术试点项目。那一年，海军的试点项目数量增加了十倍，达到约25个；到2026年，海军将有“数十个”正在进行的试点项目，涵盖人工智能、托管硬件、边缘计算和自主功能，以及浮标传感器等精细技术。

“范围相当广泛，”法内利说。

他说，该部门现在使用相同的技术术语，并以更加透明的方式就正在进行的试点工作进行沟通，从而减少了重复的、各自为政的工作。

此外，海军发现私营部门乐于与其合作，共同推广其商业技术。这两项决定都使海军能够在不超出预算的情况下提高飞行员数量。

“与其只用政府资金进行试点，现在更多的私营企业也在用自己的资金进行试点，他们说，‘嘿，这项技术已经相当成熟了。’（然后），我们只需要投入最后五码的资金（就能达阵得分），”法内利说道。

多个试点项目目前对部门运作至关重要。例如，海军和海军陆战队于2025年9月启动了“动力计划”（Project Dynamis）试点项目，旨在弥合“传感器到射手”之间的差距。该计划目前已向包括海军陆战队远征部队在内的主要指挥机构部署了诸如Maven智能系统等关键软件，并且是海军陆战队的官方指挥控制系统。

法内利表示，到目前为止，已有十个试点项目过渡到企业服务或正式项目，还有二十多个潜在用例正在排队等待处理。

“在很多情况下，这些试点项目已经转化为指定的企业服务或正式项目，”法内利说。“因此，我们现在不再让数百个相互竞争的项目永远处于游离状态，而是将试点项目转化为更高价值、更具影响力的企业服务。”

“这使我们能够像赶牛一样淘汰传统技术，”法内利补充道，他指的是海军的“赶牛行动”，这是一项旨在识别、整合和淘汰冗余、不安全和过时的 IT 系统的战略举措。

“牛群转移行动”要求有条不紊地剥离旧的、过时的技术，并推动了该行动手册的第三项建议：采取“边收购边剥离”的策略，以确保各机构不会将新技术叠加在旧系统之上。

该行动指南指出，各机构可以通过在招标文件中要求制定撤资计划、将撤资计划纳入项目规划以及在资金计划中纳入退休里程碑等方式来实现这一战略目标。

法内利说：“里根总统有一句名言，概括起来就是：‘最接近永生的就是成为政府项目。’那么，你们究竟是如何摆脱这些项目的呢？”

该方案以 IBM 政府业务中心最近的工作为基础，包括数字化现代化实施框架和 IT 现代化路线图。

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