An Agile success story: PEO EIS helps deliver ArmyIgnitED capability

Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems’ (PEO EIS) adoption of an Agile approach to project management and software development is paying off for users of the Army’s tuition assistance portal for Soldiers and civilians.

During a recent Defense Acquisition University (DAU) webinar on “ArmyIgnitED Lessons for Success,” PEO EIS’ product lead for ArmyIgnitED, Keith Baylor, shared how his team blended Agile with traditional acquisition methods to get the online system working as intended.

Baylor’s team took over ArmyIgnitED in spring 2022 when the program was transitioned from PEO EIS’ Acquisition Innovation Directorate (AID) to the Defense Integrated Business Systems portfolio where it was established as a product office. AID had worked with ArmyIgnitED’s owner, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and ASA(ALT) to assume control over the acquisition process and determine the best path forward for the program, which had been experiencing stability challenges since its rollout in mid-2021. Given that PEO EIS faced a tight deadline of fall 2022 for delivering initial capability, Baylor’s team faced a significant challenge.

According to Baylor, four key components set the groundwork for ArmyIgnitED’s rapid turnaround and success: the introduction of Agile; realignment of expectations with the systems integrator; support from systems engineering and technical assistance contractors; and deliberate development work.

Implementing a traditional Agile approach wasn’t feasible, said Baylor, since government testing and acquisition processes require formal testing and approval from the Army Acquisition Executive before changes to the application baseline can be made. Additionally, while traditional Agile allows for a fluid change process during sprints and sprint planning, the Army’s change management is more regimented, requiring consensus and formal approval. Thus, PEO EIS adopted a blended approach, and the ArmyIgnitED team deployed proven government off-the-shelf software solutions from the Air Force that were adaptable to the Army’s needs.

In August 2022, an upgraded version of the ArmyIgnitED portal went online to provide Soldiers, education counselors and academic institutions with a smoother and more reliable experience for processing Army tuition assistance requests. Five months later, in January 2023, the ArmyIgnitED team successfully rolled out the next phase of capability, enabling Army cadets to request Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarship funding and Soldiers to apply for funding for credentialing assistance. The team is presently working on phase three, which will enable Army civilians to request professional development funds via the system.

As evidence of ArmyIgnitED’s success, Baylor pointed out that from January to mid-February 2023, the ArmyIgnitED help desk only received 7,352 requests for assistance, despite the system having recorded over a million logins. 95% of the issues coming through the help desk have been resolved in under 12 hours, he added.

PEO EIS Program Executive Officer Ross Guckert expressed pride in the ArmyIgnitED team’s accomplishments to date and offered several lessons learned during the DAU webinar:

• “Business systems are hard,” said Guckert. “You have to have the right workforce, process, Agile framework and acquisition rigor to execute a successful business system. We righted the ship.”
• PEO EIS isn’t too proud to leverage others’ investments. Adapting the Air Force’s proven tuition assistance solution “enabled us to push out capability fast,” he said.
• Agile is an “incredibly effective method to deliver a human-centered solution,” said Guckert, but it requires a fully organized and integrated team, including the project management team, system owner (TRADOC) and industry partner.
• It’s important not to turn off legacy systems until the replacement system is ready, advised Guckert.

The ArmyIgnitED turnaround story is “really a testament to the power of Agile and a model for my portfolio to follow,” concluded Guckert. “The Army is going through a digital transformation, and my organization is as well, and a big part of that is Agile.”

Baylor credited close communications and cooperation among team members for the project’s success. In his role as “mediator” between TRADOC (the “functional”) and the systems integrator, Baylor ensured the functional clearly conveyed its needs, the integrator knew what to do and the Agile sprints resulted in what TRADOC wanted. During government acceptance testing — which isn’t part of the traditional Agile process — the integrator was surprised by an unexpected issue that hadn’t surfaced in earlier tests.

“That’s why we do it,” said Baylor.

Flexibility has also been important for the ArmyIgnitED team. Despite having delivery schedules for each sprint, team members occasionally have adjusted timelines to add enhanced capabilities where needed.

“You have to allow for the flexibility of the system based on what your functional needs at the time,” said Baylor. “Key to this is making sure that we foster collaboration between the functional and the system integrator, so that we get the best product.”

The final phase of ArmyIgnitED’s capability rollout is slated to take place in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023.