Project Stormbreaker

Team: Designers, Engineers, Military SMEs Focus: Product Strategy, Leadership

Summary

Stormbreaker is an ambitious congressionally funded platform that digitizes and connects the US military’s multi-year process for planning operations, allowing detailed military plans to be constructed, war-gamed, analyzed, and deployed in a matter of hours.

This case study tells the story of how I saved a 10 million dollar project by finding alignment where others couldn’t. How when stakeholders moved to eliminate my entire contracted creative team, sparing only me, I stepped up to lead, unlocked the team’s potential, and convinced leadership across organizations to retain everyone. It explores the decisions that led to my promotion to Design Lead after four months and direct hire by Smartronix after eight.

Due to NDA restrictions, this case study focuses on leadership and strategy rather than detailed design work.

The User Problem

Military planning and war-gaming are slow, analog affairs. Plans live on whiteboards. War-games use a pen and paper system from the ’70s, and flying in stakeholders adds significant time and cost. This makes it nearly impossible to test plans quickly or respond to emerging crises. A digitized, integrated planning application could change that, compressing months or even years of work into hours.

A tabletop military wargame

The Business Context

US Indo-Pacific Command contracted Smartronix (SMX) to build Stormbreaker using congressionally allocated funds.
SMX contracted Studio Alpha (SA), a Microsoft simulation R&D org, to build most of the application.
SA contracted a senior creative team (myself and four others) to provide design support under an SA creative director.

The Actual Business Context, Unfortunately

Studio Alpha (SA) would be laid off mid-project after three months. Conversations between people within SA rarely ended in alignment, which made it difficult for ideas to be green-lit or for teams to know what they should be working on. From the time I joined until the layoff, none of my four design colleagues were ever assigned work.

Not long after Stormbreaker began, Smartronix (SMX) leadership grew frustrated with SA. When SMX tried to communicate project requirements, SA leadership would nod and say, “Yes, got it, understood” even when they didn’t. Weeks passed without teams aligned on what parts of the project they should be working on because there wasn’t even alignment on what the project was supposed to be.

I was the only designer receiving work requests, which came from the SA Creative Director as: “Make something in Figma” (always high fidelity, never with context). Despite having access to internal military SMEs, our team was never given the opportunity to speak with them – they were considered too important for us to talk to. The work I produced didn’t appear to align with what I suspected SMX actually wanted, and I would later confirm this to be true. I did what was asked of me, but I knew there was more to this problem. So I started digging.

Making It Work

Without access to users, I had to find other ways to understand military planning. I came across the JP 5-0, a 350-page military technical document that contains the doctrinal rules on how operations are meant to be planned in the US.

The JP 5-0 is a difficult read, heavy with acronyms and jargon, but I took it slow, researched what confused me, and focused on the most relevant chapters.

Synthesizing Information

Reading the JP 5-0, I realized something fundamental: military war-gaming is iterative simulation.

The process mirrors how we interact with AI: Create an input, run it, evaluate the output, adjust, and repeat. War-gaming follows the exact same pattern. Planners establish initial parameters, test different Courses of Action, and iterate until they’re satisfied.

The JP 5-0 front cover

“Regular” Simulation

Military War-Gaming

Building to the Big Picture

By understanding how the military simulates war-games, I could map out how that simulation would fit into the seven-step doctrinal planning process outlined in the JP 5-0. This gave me a framework for how Stormbreaker should actually work.

All information below is based on publicly available sources and my interpretation at the time.

1 2 3 4 5

Letter of Recommendation, Van R Sikorsky, Colonel (R), SMX Program Director

Impact on the Project

I created an exploratory prototype based on my research that received an overwhelmingly positive reception from SA, which usually struggled to align on anything. Within a week, I was able to share them with SMX’s program director. They received no critical feedback and became the foundation for how work on the application moved forward. The program director made it clear to Microsoft leadership that I needed to be present in all product meetings going forward.

Had I not done this, I believe project termination was imminent.

For two months, the SA Creative Director quietly sat next to me in product meetings while I, someone who wasn’t even a Microsoft employee, handled Stormbreaker’s design strategy in partnership with Microsoft and SMX leadership. It was an unusual situation, but I managed it with patience and respect. I wanted to deliver the best product I could.

Letter of Recommendation, Sungwook Kim, Lt. Colonel (R), SMX Lead Planner

The Studio Alpha Layoff

In October 2022, Studio Alpha was laid off in its entirety due to ongoing concerns over their ability to perform. Microsoft’s Federal org, a different internal division, moved in to handle the project.

This made waves. SMX leadership wasn’t happy that the organization they’d contracted had just been eliminated. They responded decisively, hiring former SA employees they’d valued to manage work internally and laying the groundwork for an in-house team. The message to Microsoft was clear: If you fail to deliver, we’ll terminate the contract and hire everyone we want from your layoffs.

SMX wanted me. Microsoft didn’t want to lose me. In an unprecedented move, I would be the sole survivor of the SA layoff – transferred directly into Microsoft’s Federal org.

There was one condition: I could bring one person from my creative team. Everyone else would lose their jobs.

I went home for the weekend to think.

Making Them Indispensable

I returned Monday to our creative team’s morning call. One person was already missing: Our boss, the SA creative director. Nobody knew about my golden ticket. Everyone assumed we had until our contracts lapsed at the end of the month, and then that would be it.

I told the team I didn’t know what was ahead, but if they were willing to hear it, I might know how to chart a path forward.

I believed my colleagues hadn’t been given a real chance to shine under the old leadership. There was meaningful work to be done on Stormbreaker that suited their skills. I’d already decided over the weekend how to task everyone.

I gave the team an outline of where things stood and where I needed their help. I scheduled time during wider shares with SMX and Federal where they could present their contributions. I set up regular 1-on-1s to offer support and mentorship.

The Call

The end of the month was approaching. I still hadn’t told anyone about the choice I’d been given, or that I’d refused to make it.

Then my contact in Microsoft’s Federal org called.

“Are they all important?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Everyone kept their jobs.

Letter of Recommendation, Aaron Butler, Senior UX Designer, Allovus Creative Team and SMX

Letter of Recommendation, Paul Lange, Lead Product Designer, Allovus Creative Team and SMX

Resolution

Microsoft’s new org couldn’t build a war-game on the tight timeline they’d inherited. After six months, SMX terminated the contract and hired me and my teammates directly.

I spent another year and a half at SMX humbled to work alongside people ten+ years my senior, learning from minds I’d only begun to earn a seat next to. Together, we built a product that’s currently live in integrated DoD systems. Stormbreaker was a success.

Eventually, internal DoD restructuring moved the project to a different contractor with a different approach to the war-game component. But the broader planning system I designed, the one built from a weekend reading the JP 5-0, persists in use today.

What I Learned

This project taught me that UX designers are uniquely situated to build alignment by virtue of their ability to research and chart the way forward . It taught me that leadership often means stepping up before anyone asks you to, and that the best way to prove someone’s value is to give them the opportunity to show it themselves.

Most importantly, it taught me that good product strategy comes from a willingness to learn about a problem space deeply enough that you see solutions others can’t.

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