Bryon Kroger, founder and CEO of Rise8, closes Day 2 of Prodacity 2026 with a call to act instead of one more framework. He opens with the old definition of DevOps he used at the very first Prodacity, which he offers as a definition of success in any field: caring enough about your job to stop passing the buck and to learn every part of the work. He looks back on his time as an Air Force captain, when learning acquisitions, the FAR, and RMF led to the work behind the SWAP study, the software acquisition pathway, and continuous ATO. From there he lays out three imperatives: do the right thing, do what works, and do what's required. After a clip from Chadd Wright on execution, he ties those imperatives to the stoic virtues and makes the case for courage, and beyond courage, audacity. In this community, that means Prodacity.

All right. Today was just like information packed. I though about hitting you with the outcomes and the framework one more time, but I'm not going to do that. I don't think we can fit anymore. So instead of more knowledge, I'm going to go with some feels. There's this old definition of DevOps that I've always loved. I actually opened the very first Prodacity with it, but what's unique about it, because I'm not going to talk to you about DevOps, I think we're done talking about DevOps, is that this is a universal definition for success in any field. So I'll read this. Here's the secret. I'll tell you exactly what success means. Success means giving a **** about your job enough not to pass the buck. Success means giving a crap about your job enough to want to learn all the parts and not just your little world.

Technology needs to understand the mission. Acquisitions people need to understand technology. People need to work together, not just occupy space next to one another. We have covered a lot of content that goes well beyond most of your job titles. You have to learn all of it to be successful. And that's because there's many, many problems in GovTech, almost none of which are your fault, but if you want to be successful, every single one of them is now your responsibility and that sucks. It sucks that fault and responsibility don't go together, but it's true. And so I think back to when I was a captain in the Air Force, I'd just seen all of these missions fail, people die, huge awful incident where I decided I'm going to go try to fix this myself. I didn't know very much about technology. I didn't know anything about acquisitions or the FAR, but thanks Dan Ward for the FAR guide.

If you haven't checked out the FAR guide, by the way, still very relevant today, I didn't know anything about RMF or ATOs. And before long, we were inventing new ways to do acquisitions that became the basis of the SWAP study and the software acquisition pathway. We were creating continuous ATO, which is not a way around the RMF. It was a way to get 100% RMF compliance alongside the DevOps SDLC. I didn't know any of that when I started, and I had to spend time learning things that were not my job and definitely not my fault. And they're not the war fighter's fault that's out in the field. They're definitely not the veteran's fault who's trying to get care at a VA hospital. They're not any citizen's fault in any way that they're interacting with the government for areas that you're trying to fix. There's this other thing that some of you maybe needed to learn some of these new things, but I suspect some of you, there are at least a few things, if not many things that you already knew.

And when you go back, some of your colleagues might need to learn some of these things, but more often than not, we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. And if you just did all of the things you already know you need to do, you'd be 10 times farther than you are now. It's like a brutal truth in all aspects of our lives.

These types of events and books and podcasts, they're great. I'm putting one on after all, but eventually you just got to do the thing. You got to go do the hard thing, less information, more implementation. Something I heard Chris Hughes say, I just loved. And so when you put these things together, you have to do the right thing, right? It doesn't matter if it's your fault, just got to get it done. You have to do what works. That's going to take some learning. You got to figure out what works first, and then you got to do what's required. All the things you know you already should be doing, you just have to go do them. I can't tell you how many times I put my career on the line, got threatened with Article 15s. I was going down a pretty rough path for a while there, but it all worked out.

And I think if we could play this video.

Chadd Wright (video):

In the SEAL teams, I was a breacher, all right? And when we would get a target package, I'd gather intel on the breach point. I would build a bomb. I would go back to the ready room, build a bomb specifically to Breach this wall. We would go out, we would get on target. I'd be the first one in the patrol. I'd move up to the breach point. I'd peel the hydrogel off the back of this wall charge as the sticky stuff. I'd place the bomb on the wall. I'd cap my blasting cap in. I'd pay my debt cord out back to minimum safe distance and I would look back behind me and I would just see a bunch of sets of green eyes. It was my entire team was waiting for three words. And these three words ring through my head every single morning and the three words are execute, execute, execute.

And on the third execute, I would put power to that charge and all freaking hell would break loose and we would crush our enemy. And that's what people don't do. They don't execute. And you have to understand if you don't execute on the plan, if you don't get up in the morning when you're feeling tired, scared, you don't know what's going to happen. If you don't execute, you're not just cheating yourself, dude. You're cheating your family, you're cheating your employees, you're cheating your team. Whatever you're a part of, it's bigger than you.

Bryon Kroger:

So if I go back to those three things, do, do, do. Execute, execute, execute. These line up with three of the four stoic virtues of stoicism. You've got in order here, justice, wisdom, and temperance. Does anybody know the fourth? Courage. Courage. And courage is I think magical among the four because courage is what unlocks the other three. You can know the right thing, you can know what works, you can know what is required, but to actually do them requires action and that action takes courage. But what we need is more than courage. I think what we need is audacity. So if you look up these two definitions, you'll see some differences. The primary driver of overcoming fear and enduring hardship versus striking confidence and breaking norms. Steadfast, defensive, persevering versus offensive, forward thinking and disruptive. I think the first is universally viewed as noble and virtuous, whereas the last can be seen as arrogant depending on the context, but in the right context is inspiring.

And that's what we need right now. Josh Marcuse, who you heard from on the stage before, he one time told me that the most important thing that Kessel Run ever produced was hope. And I think that it's really important that we not just have courage, but we have audacity or in our case, it's Prodacity. The audacity to continuously deliver valuable software that users love into production in government. 

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