Evolutionary Capabilities

Developed and Fielded in Nine Months

Rapid and Reliable Development, CrossTalk, May/June 2009

Authors: Ms. Portia Crowe, US ARMY, Program Executive

C3T, PM-Battle Command
Dr. Robert Cloutier, Stevens Institute of Technology
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1. REPORT DATE 3. DATES COVERED

2. REPORT TYPE
APR 2010 00-00-2010 to 00-00-2010
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER
Evolutionary Capabilities Developed and Fielded in Nine Months 5b. GRANT NUMBER
(BRIEFING CHARTS)
5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER

5e. TASK NUMBER

5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER

7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION

REPORT NUMBER
US ARMY, Program Executive Office Command Control
Communications-Tactical (C3T),PM-Battle Command,Aberdeen Proving
Ground,MD,21010
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13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
Presented at the 22nd Systems and Software Technology Conference (SSTC), 26-29 April 2010, Salt Lake
City, UT.
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Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18
A
Agenda
d
• Challenges
g
• Program Needs
• pp
Solution Approach
• Emergent Findings
• Learned Tenets
• Success
• Conclusion

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P
Program N
Needs
d
“Develop
Develop a readiness reporting system that most
accurately reflects the status of the unit to
accomplish the mission they are most likely to do.”
GEN Casey
Casey, CSA

Implement senior leader guidance

Support strategy and doctrine
Simplify the readiness reporting process
Maintain necessary readiness visibility of Army units

Community of Stakeholders to include HQDA G3/5/7 Office of Defense 
C it f St k h ld t i l d HQDA G3/5/7 Offi fD f
Readiness, TRADOC, FORSCOM, PM Battle Command‐SBC  

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Ch ll
Challenges
• Rapid development while following acquisition directives
– Legacy and new system/technologies interoperability
– Close user and stakeholders collaboration
– Change of thought from waterfall to agile

• Complex environments

• Changing and unforeseen requirements

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Ch ll
Challenges ((continued)
ti d)
• Develop an agile and adaptable system to support new
technologies and requirements
• Unit Status Reporting Tool

• Agile program management to include risk management

• Rapidly field capabilities

– Buy in of leadership
– Training
T i i users forf new capabilities
bili i

Migrate a legacy, hardware dependant, client‐server architecture to a web‐
Migrate a legacy hardware dependant client server architecture to a web
based service enabled, hardware independent, secure environment (SIPRnet)

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 Transition from Legacy to Modern
Legacy business processes 
not able to handle new Unforeseen requirements
requirements No operational downtime
Flexibility of System & Process
Existing capabilities Trained Force for emerging capabilities

No robust failover strategy Multiple Contractors New Architecture  with robust

failover and HW
Old hardware
Single Sign‐on for suite of 
Standalone Application applications on one portal
IN 9 MONTHS!!
Stove‐piped data Relationship between apps

Swivel chair operations Web based

PC ASORTS
Defense Readiness 
Reporting System‐Army (DRRS‐A)

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S l ti
Solutions Approach
A h
y Agile Methodology (SCRUM)
g gy ( )
y Work off of a solution backlog of requirements which serves 
as a record of your requirements
y Backlog is prioritized to ensure your most critical items are addressed 
first
y Average 30 day Sprints (but could be flexible in length)
y Development team commits to stories from the backlog
y Work collaboratively with customer to develop stories
Work collaboratively with customer to develop stories
y Sprint Review at end of sprint to review results with customer, get 
feedback and adapt or re‐prioritize backlog stories as necessary
y Delivery of working software at end of each sprint for hands‐on use 
o a es se e
from a test server
y Full Dress Rehearsal Test Strategy
y Done before each major delivery
y Deliveries approximately every 60 days
y User input on usability, effectiveness, quality
bl ff l

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Scr m De
Scrum Development
elopment Process
Scrum: 15 minute
S i t d daily
il meeting
ti
Team members respond to basic
questions:
1) What did you do since last
Scrum meeting
2) Do you have any obstacles?
3) What will you do before the next
meeting?

Prioritized features Features assigned

desired by customer to Sprint
Backlog items added
by team members

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 Took an Overall Agile
g Approach
pp to Systems
y
Engineering
Concept Refinement, Capability Development, Production, Deployment,
Requirements & Architecture Integration & Test, Operations & Support,
Analysis, Design Demonstration Training

Facility, Help Desk

Program Cost & Schedule, System, Software, User Story
Assumptions, Constraints Development
Release Schedule & Field
Concepts, Models, Processes Integration, Testing, Evaluation, Support, Training
Demo
Planning logistics and software Sustainment Plans
development
Formal Testing
Security, Upgrades
Prototyping, Model and Simulation
Security Assessment

• Agile approach to ensure customer and user needs were met in a timely manner
• Evolvement of linear life cycle approach to working life cycle phases in parallel for 
rapidness
• Monthly requirements (new, enhancements, changes) and prioritization 
• Training users and training materials were done  early and often
• Weekly IPT meetings+ Scrum sessions = constant collaboration and coordination
• Operational test events were conducted at coordinated checkpoints with bug/fix 
scheduled
as a story in the backlog (3 events was magic number before fielding)
• Strong dedicated team (doesn’t have to be co‐located) with team ownership of product
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 Emergent Agile Culture Changes
Characteristics Comments
Liberty to be dynamic Agility needs dynamic processes while adhering
to acquisition milestones
Non-linear; Cyclical and non-sequential Life cycle behavior not like traditional waterfall
models or linear frameworks; decreasing cycle
times
ti
Adaptive Conform to changes such as capability and
environment
Simultaneous development of phase Rapid fielding time may not lend to traditional
components phase containment (i.e.
(i e training and SW
development together)
Ease of Change Culture shift to support change neutrality; ease
of modification built into architecture and
design
Short Iterations Prototyping, demonstrating and testing can be
done in short iterative cycles with tight user
feedback loop
Light-weight phase attributes Heavy process reduction such as milestone
reviews,, demonstrations,, and risk management
g

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L
Learned
d Tenets
T t
y New functionality should have clear requirements and close
functional proponent involvement to achieve “develop once and
leave it” paradigm
y Start security certification process as soon as feasible
y Foster good relationships with stakeholders to encourage
collaboration and ownership
y Involve users of new capabilities and functionality as change is
usually unwanted but necessary
y Risk management is an oxymoron in agile methodologies. It
can, and d mustt b
become an iinherent
h t partt off any agile
il approach
h
y Plan, communicate and help one another during this process-
it’s a team effort

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Success
y Successfully fielded DRRS-A in 9 months with:
y A trained Force (Close to 5500 users)
y train the trainer
y application training
y interactive media
y user guides
id ffor self-teaching,
lf t hi and
d site
it ttraining)
i i )
y Assessable, secure and easy to use applications
y Operationally effective and accurate- unit status reporting went from 82% a
month to 98% reporting
p g units
y Architecture is more robust (implements a service-oriented
architecture)
y Agile methodology resulted in smaller, close knit development
team
y Lifecycle cost savings exceeds over $2M and rising across Army
y Replicated success by developing the DRRS-Marine Corp
applications in 8 months
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M
More Success
S
• Implemented net-centric capabilities
– Data is now understandable (data tagging), sharable and visible
– Web services registered in NCES Registry
• Collaboration of multiple contractors (i.e.
(i e Lockheed
Martin and Accenture)
• Continuing to rapidly deliver new and enhanced
capabilities to the field

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C
Conclusion
l i
• Commercial best practices such as agile engineering
can be used in DoD
– However, it requires strong leadership
– Commitment from the top
– Organizational culture changes

• Initial intent was to use the agile approach for software

only, however, quickly extended that to all systems
engineering functions on DRRS-A
DRRS A
– This became a critical success factor for the project

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