Agile Transformation at Booz Allen in Colorado Springs

A brilliant scientist developed an extraordinary capability but could not comprehend the habits of its system users. Without a solid understanding of the end users’ operational mentalities, all that science would sit in a corner, collecting dust. Enter Booz Allen.

Booz Allen’s Colorado Springs team brought in experts in cloud deployment and cloud security. Together, they worked to digest and dissect user needs and ensure a smooth transition in deployment to the cloud. All in a day’s work for the Colorado Springs team.

The client at hand heard about agile project management, and knew it originated as a software development tool process; beyond that, the client was unclear as to the potential of agile applications for other types of development and integration efforts. The client was not familiar with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and never participated in any agile processes. Booz Allen instituted a tailored set of SAFe practices, integrated JIRA and Confluence tools for collaboration, and established an agile scrum—the process of breaking large tasks into manageable parts and reviewing and adapting along the timeline of the project.

Exploring modern cloud-based environments and various architectures tailored for client software enables smooth transitions of operational software into operational classified cloud environments and empowers clients to serve as their own system administrators. The Colorado Springs team leans on agile processes every day to manage their own work efficiently as well. They use short, daily tag ups to maintain productivity, tabling larger issues for future conversations. The skills developed in these efforts have further developed team members’ toolkits, providing them with significant cloud architecture experience. Additionally, Booz Allen employees can take advantage of dedicated learning time provided by the firm and various education benefits to facilitate International Consortium for Agile certified professional (ICP) certifications.

The agile tenant of frequent user interaction guides the Colorado Springs team as they travel the world to teach and learn. Blazing trails from Florida to Nebraska to New Mexico, and even to Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the Booz Allen team interfaces with users and collects their feedback on software as it’s developed. This creates a constructive feedback loop that rapidly integrates user feedback into new software versions and helps produce comprehensive documentation for each development project. Such documentation helps clients identify specific resources needed to run their software in the cloud.

Kevin Scro, chief scientist for Space and Missile Systems said, “I’ve never seen such passion and persistence from the science and technology, engineering, and operational communities to address such a difficult problem quickly. Simply put, the MASE (Military Application of the Space Environment) team was successful because they drove a culture change and broke glass to get the job done.”

In 2018, a MASE projects engineer volunteered at the 2018 Department of Defense Warrior Games, a Paralympic-style event for disabled athletes. Participation gave him more in return than he was able to provide to the participants, finding inspiration in helping service members with disabilities continue athletic pursuits despite previous injuries. The event featured eight sporting categories, with teams from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and the U.S. Special Operations Command. Approximately 265 recovering service members and veterans represented in archery, cycling, swimming, wheelchair basketball, and more. 

From retired military personnel to college graduates freshly entering the workforce, Colorado Springs unites technical experts, certified professionals, and aspiring leaders with opportunities to challenge conventions and new tools to help grow careers. All opinions are encouraged and valued equally, sharing knowledge across the Navy, Air Force, and Special Ops community.

Want to learn more? Take a look at job opportunities in the area and see if there’s a role with your name on it.