Chris Lynch, director of the Defense Department's Defense Digital Service, recently spoke at the 2016 Defense One Tech Summit about how his office, which started operations in November, is bringing private-sector best practices to the government.
“When we came in, we had seen a lot of different approaches,” Lynch said. “Lots of money had been spent on everything from technology (to) the teams that were running the infrastructure, but when you think about it, we spent a lot of time focused on the networks themselves and not necessarily the applications that are running on top of it.”
Lynch said his team consists of personnel with skills unique to the Department of Defense (DoD), allowing them to address challenges arising from specific strategic projects. Lynch's office also brings in civilians from the private sector on a temporary basis to meet specific challenges in their areas of expertise.
“My team is pretty much made up of nongovernment people,” Lynch said. “We’re a little bit like a SWAT team, so we go into things where there is a challenge and help out in whatever way we can.”
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