UNDERSTANDING ARMY ACQUISITION
Te Unified Network Operations middle-tier acquisition author- ity is helping us to provide a more integrated, standardized and simplified network operations architecture. In one of the first efforts under the agreement, in March 2019 we concentrated on prototyping existing commercial software applications for network planning and management, integrating them into exist- ing government programs of record, and then quickly inserting them into military formations to gain feedback for further enhancements and to support future Army capability decisions.
A TEAM-OF-TEAMS It was apparent early on that an integrated tool suite would require an integrated team that promoted alignment, collabora- tion and rapid delivery. From the beginning, we worked closely with Army stakeholders, including the Network Cross-Functional Team, to ensure that our PEO C3T team was synchronized with Army network modernization efforts and requirements. Our team created a methodology to rapidly integrate and align development activities between the offices, implementing software develop- ment techniques found in the commercial software development world—including Agile software development; a scaled Agile software framework, which guided the team in applying lean and Agile practices for rapid development and delivery; and a unified team of teams that managed a tightly integrated software release cycle, known as an Agile release train.
Following middle-tier acquisition authority guidelines, we looked at leveraging commercial technologies, existing Army programs
and resources to meet the network operations gaps in support of evolving unit formations, such as the Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced pilot unit and the security force assistance brigades, and the emerging network operations requirements that support them. We looked at resources that were available within PEO C3T that were already being used in different project offices to satisfy specific needs. We found significant synergies in software-defined radio capability development among the Proj- ect Lead for Network Enablers, the Project Manager (PM) for Tactical Network and the Project Manager for Tactical Radios, and we knew that combining and integrating efforts would be an exponentially more efficient and effective process.
We created an integrated team of over 20 engineers, including a senior engineer from each of the three project management offices. Instead of each office focusing on its own product, the team worked together to pull the different products together to work as one functional business process. We looked for innova- tive ways to enhance one another’s separate capabilities, which eventually led to enhancement of the radio management tool suite as a whole.
We did not build an entirely new Army system or write mountains of new code, but instead used common interfaces and protocols— work that already had been done in commercial industry. We integrated commercial applications and tools into our existing systems so they could work in new ways. Within three months of working together, we were able to reduce the process to initialize,
TO THE FIELD
PEO C3T provided a leaders’ professional development session to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division (1/82 ABN) in August, in preparation for the fielding of Integrated Tactical Network capabilities. (U.S. Army photo by 1/82 ABN Public Affairs)
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