CASE STUDY: Speeding Software Delivery to Armed Services Using Agile and RUP

CUSTOMER CHALLENGE:

The headquarters office of an armed services branch provides software development services to its staff and to other components of the Department of Defense (DoD). The office provides full operational and development support for nearly 40 custom and COTS applications. Due to ever-increasing software complexity, the office decided to contract out to a highly-skilled support team to meet its software development needs.

DELIVERY:

Over the last 10 years, ATSC has worked to increase the efficiency of the headquarters staff by meeting their business needs through web-based technologies. We have also modernized aging legacy systems through the re-engineering of not only the architecture but the business rules and usability as well. We provide on-going support for the full software life cycle, including technology evaluations, COTS integration, business and requirements analysis, design, testing, implementation, production support, change management, training and project management.

ATSC introduced the headquarters staff to the Rational Unified Process (RUP), and has recently enhanced this implementation through the utilization of agile iteration management techniques. The goals of “agilizing” RUP were to speed software delivery and improve customer satisfaction. With these aims in mind, we instituted the team-based program management methodology Scrum to increase communication, collaboration and stakeholder buy-in.

We applied agile methods across the full software catalog which includes the following types of software:

Human resources management
Financial management
Case management
Workflow
Order fulfillment
Collaboration and outreach

RESULTS:

Reduced application development life cycle time by 40%
Achieved 100% success rate in system delivery and acceptance
Developed a financial tracking system that generated over 50% savings related to DoD security clearance adjudications
Increased senior military officer involvement in the application development process by improving transparency into project operations and providing measurable results of system acceptance and delivery improvements
Implemented collaboration system to respond to Pentagon leadership on military policy issues. The system manages the position lifecycle including workflow to solicit input, control versions, obtain approvals, update stakeholders and securely transmit the resulting position

CONTACT US: casestudies@atsc.com