Command Support Systems Sustainment Systems Office

By engaging across Defence, SYPAQ established a delivery framework which includes all stakeholders and then acted as the primary organisation for coordination of software development and deployment activities for the Army’s Battle Management System.

Previous attempts at releasing a new version of the software had failed. The next version of the software was at risk of not being delivered.  The root causes of this were:

• Poor communication of requirements and expectations by stakeholders
• Lack of coordination of development activities and alignment with stakeholder delivery milestones
• Complexity – lots of stakeholders, each with their own goals, agendas, and timeframes that were not adequately communicated
• A highly technical environment that intimidated stakeholders who were not Subject Matter Experts
• Challenges associated with Defence posting cycles – drives need for a continuous engagement process
• The Commonwealth’s vision was not clearly understood, nor articulated to all stakeholders (including other Commonwealth stakeholders).

SYPAQ was engaged to develop, document and implement a change management strategy, including developing the required supporting framework and processes. SYPAQ was also responsible for the ongoing management of concurrent software deliveries utilising this strategy and framework.

SYPAQ and C2SSO saw this as an opportunity to establish a delivery framework which included all stakeholders, and act as the primary organisation for coordination of software development and deployment activities for the Battle Management System.

SYPAQ also led multi-disciplinary teams within the organisation (C2SSO) to deliver updates to the Army’s Battle Management System capability. These consistently met user needs and stakeholder expectations.

For this engagement, SYPAQ tailored its change management methodology and processes for the client’s environment. The SYPAQ team investigated the current situation, capturing and analysing data to guide implementation. SYPAQ then identified and engaged with stakeholders to understand key requirements and drivers, and defined the key issues, especially regarding interfacing (e.g. complexity and coordination).

SYPAQ also identified the need for capability roadmaps and their development by both the Commonwealth and Contractors.

Following the discovery and analysis, SYPAQ developed the solution architecture, using Atlassian JIRA to:

• Facilitate collaboration between Defence and industry stakeholders
• Engage and educate stakeholders to achieve buy-in
• Champion stakeholder agreements between parties
• Establish a common business rhythm for all stakeholders, and;
• Establish a framework for registering, prioritising, and allocating a backlog of changes sourced from issues / features / improvements reported by users and stakeholders (from reports of defective and unsatisfactory material, known issues with product, requests from stakeholders, etc) to releases.

SYPAQ also managed the backlog of changes through allocation, development and release by engaging stakeholders through planning workshops. These workshops reviewed the backlog, prioritised changes, allocated changes to release, planned releases via roadmaps and generated user stories from changes to decompose changes for release.