Fostering Innovation and Continuous Improvement for VA
Background
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information & Technology’s (OIT), Demand Management Division (DMD) established and implements digital modernization initiatives to deliver an optimal, modern digital experience that meets the needs of the VA enterprise. These initiatives include the acceleration and adoption of modern technical solutions and services (e.g., cloud, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), microservices, artificial intelligence, conversational platforms, interactive customer experience (ICX), Internet of Things (IoT)), as well as any emerging technologies that may arise, and the adoption of delivery approaches such as DevSecOps and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
The Technology Incubation Services (TIS) program was created to provide the DMD with the necessary program management and strategic implementation support to drive successful modernization efforts and continuous improvement and innovation.
Understanding the Need
For the TIS program to achieve its objectives, VA OIT DMD required a contracting partner that had the proven understanding of VA needs and of the civic tech moment and demonstrated subject matter experts with a range of experience in both the public and private sectors. The VA OIT’s industry partner needed to:
- Foster greater participation between VA, other agencies, and the private sector to deliver services that strengthen the Veteran experience.
- Provide access to expert sources of new ideas and technical innovations that would stimulate technology advancements.
- Apply a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach to strategic and product plans and guidance.
Our Solution
Under the TIS program, GovCIO works with the DMD to deliver a range of strategic services to various OIT organizations and executives including technology modernization recommendations, product engineering team assistance, technical and data analysis, incident resolution and mitigation, and training and coaching in modern software development techniques, such as Agile and DevSecOps practices.
Working closely with DMD, our experts help define strategic goals and milestones that keep focused on its North Star, dedicating resources to projects to that support these objectives and tracking through the identified key results. For each new initiative we undertake, GovCIO follows a general Human Centered, Agile execution approach to ensure sustained success.
Agile Transformation Services
Supporting over 885 products across all VA product lines, GovCIO works with VA’s Agile Center of Excellence (ACOE) to lead VA OIT’s enterprise transformation to an Agile organization. Working with nine VA change teams, our Agile coaches have helped identify issues, resolve obstacles, set a standard cadence, and produce meaningful results. Our team have developed custom agile, scaled agile, and DevSecOps training programs for product teams and the general VA user community, delivering both in-person and virtual training for VA employees across the country.
Piloting of Automated Bot Solutions
GovCIO has worked closely with the OIT Information and Technology Budget and Finance (ITBF) group to assess key processes such as the approval of purchase card purchases and timecards, develop initial automated bot processes to execute these processes, and evaluate measures of success.
DevSecOps Coaching and Implementation
GovCIO has guided the push to implement DevSecOps across OIT’s enterprise, ensuring OIT resources had the Agile foundations for DevSecOps to succeed. GovCIO helped define a DSO implementation strategy and roadmap that included OKRs in culture, business operations, product line management, tools and metrics, emerging technologies, and SAFe. The team regularly delivers and presents topics for all of VA OIT during the DSO “DevSecOps Days”, reaching thousands of participants with each broadcast.
Reporting and Analytics
GovCIO’s team of site reliability engineers (SREs) and data scientists works to understand, mitigate, and predict the reliability of critical infrastructure and systems. While the SREs perform in-depth root cause analysis of system failures, our data science team collects and analyzes the data to provide recommendations for mitigations or solutions.
Results
Over the course of this program, in partnership with VA OIT, GovCIO has helped drive significant modernization efforts for the VA enterprise. Some of our most notable accomplishments have included:
- Designed and delivered “in-person” and virtual Agile, Product Owner, and SAFe training for over 14,500 VA federal employees across the country.
- Supported 100+ weekly Agile-focused Brown Bags with 10,000+ attendees and created/distributed recorded training material for on-demand learning.
- Helped establish clear enterprise DevSecOps standards and foundations by:
- Recommending over 20 new software tools;
- Identifying enterprise software standards for SAFe and Agile
- Designing a hybrid DevSecOps approach that could be adopted by teams supporting legacy environments.
- Working with VA’s Technology Acquisition Center to create new terms and conditions for software development contracts, so the new software and approach could be consistently applied enterprise wide.
- Created a DevSecOps self-assessment survey and dashboard to evaluate the current readiness of a product team to transition to DevSecOps and a path forward to maturing its DevSecOps posture.
- Assisted the ACOE Reporting and Analytics team with the overall usability and design of their Product Scorecard.
- Saved the government the equivalent of 14 FTEs worth of time by helping to automate certain financial and accounting processes for the ITBF group.
Related GovCIO Insights
How DevSecOps Helps Federal Agencies Better Serve Their End Users
Improving the Veteran Experience
