Army CIO Raj Iyera 2022 Wash100 Award recipient, opened on Wednesday Second Year Army IT and Digital Transformation Forumwith an engaging and informative keynote address covering the challenges of talent recruitment and the immediate need for digital transformation efforts to drive the Army toward its 2030 modernization and strategic goals.
Following the opening keynote, the forum and conversation continued GovCon Wire Events presenting a full panel of experts featuring a breakdown of business requirements and changes that the U.S. Army continues to adapt as well as managing resources and funds to begin the modernization efforts the service branch is undergoing toward in FY24.
The panel moderator Sandra LopezCTO for the Enterprise IT & Cyber Solutions (E&CS) organization within Defense of Leidosopened the discussion that introduced all three panelists to the Forum to discuss the biggest challenges to preventing obsolescence across the U.S. Army and the biggest barriers to the organization’s culture in its overwhelming modernization efforts.
People of Dovariusdirector and CIO of Corporate Information (Information Technology) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Army, first commented on the critical aspects of understanding real business requirements because business requirements are often does not always translate from the technical side of things.
People also discussed the misunderstandings that can occur from a customer to service and delivery perspective, which can be considered as a late thought in the process and culture of delivering solutions for the Army.
“Culturally, I believe there are certain aspects to determine, especially if we are operating without direct funding right from the Army,” Peoples explains. “While you think about corporate America, the Army was not built as a free for a service organization, we still receive reimbursable funds. There are many different colors of money and we need to make sure there is we are the right color to advance our critical mission capabilities as we move into the future. ”
As the panel discussion turned to Gregg JudgeDeputy Director Enterprise Cloud Management Agency [ECMA] as well as the U.S. Army CIO at the U.S. Department of the Army, he touched on the point of having the “right color of money” from previous Dovarius Peoples comments.
Judge noted that he expects significant exponential growth for the U.S. Army as Google and other platforms like ServiceNow or Salesforce develop new capabilities and work in the service branch. He noted that the Army is receiving increased demand for demand signals and other offers such as software-as-a-service.
“That’s really important for the Army right now because as-a-service gives us a huge advantage over the traditional legacy of licensing models,” Judge Gregg stressed. “We’re only paying now for what the Army actually uses, not necessarily what we want.”
The Judge continued, “Our leaders have literally an unprecedented perspective on the resources their organization actually uses. That utility model is really starting to speak for the Army and the sector as a whole.”
Matthew MaierProject Manager, Interoperability, Integration and Services, PEO C3T- Tactical, U.S. Department of the Army, also discussed another topic of cloud adoption, DevSecOps and the importance of agility in the overall procurement planning process for united network operations for service branch.
More importantly, Maier advocated that the aspect of united network operations is a much larger part of Army construction, which needs to be explored. He specified that the ultimate goal is to align those network operations with the set of requirements, resourcing and procurement strategies to begin larger modernization efforts in the coming years, starting in FY24.
“We already have some requirements and definition packages going through the system for approval,” Matthew Maier explains. “We are laser focused on six different key areas for unified network operations to include the lower tier, the upper tier, the data fabric as well as the strategic and enterprise focus of the network.
On the acquisition front, the Army has several mid-tier acquisition efforts going forward and exploring any and all opportunities for industry competition in that space, ”he concludes.
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