WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio – The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Business and Enterprise Systems Directorate is working on a new program that will improve information sharing and management in the Air Force logistics community.
Known as the Item Master Logistics Capabilities Initiative (IMLCI), the program will standardize and configuration manage, core logistics data or information in the Air Force supply chain to include equipment, parts, etc., which will be located in one place and accessible to the logistics professionals.
“IMLCI integrates all of Air Force logistics, and is the foundation to logistics transformation” said Brandon Coffrey, IMLCI lead. “That’s the critical piece to this.”
In 2018 IMLCI was designated as a pilot program and authorized to use agile or iterative development methods under Section 869 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019.
Even before this designation, IMLCI was planning to use an agile software development approach.
The first ‘agile’ steps were to form an Integrated Program Office (IPO), Program and Functional Management Office resources, and to bring in a certified agile coach.
The IPO is co-located in a single, collaborative work environment and agile training for the office is an on-going process, provided by the agile coach and Defense Acquisition University.
Nov. 15-16, 2018 the IPO conducted initial sprint planning sessions where tasks were put in the product backlog and prioritized. The initial sprint was defined and IPO resources assigned to it.
Currently IMLCI is utilizing the Scrumban methodology combining features of SCRUM and Kanban agile development models. In addition, IMLCI is using Jira, an agile tracking tool, to plan, track and manage all IMLCI work.
A Jira Kanban Board is being used to visualize work actions/tasks and ensure the workflow is maximized for efficiency. IMLCI is not currently in software development, but is currently in the pre-Acquisition Phase of DoDI 5000.75, preparing for approvals to proceed into formal acquisition activities.
Although the current workload contains documentation development, it is not precluding the program from following agile practices.
The program is accomplishing all required acquisition activities to include developing the required documentation for a request for proposal, acquisition approval, Authority to Proceed (ATP) charts, and our mandated Agile Implementation Plan in two-week sprints.
To date, the team has successfully written the IMLCI Agile Implementation plan which was signed by Darlene Costello, SAF/AQ, in December 2018, and drafted the first ATP briefing for the Acquisition ATP. The IPO has had to shift paradigms, embracing the “agile mindset” and, learning as they go. This collaborative team is successfully developing and delivering the required Acquisition documentation, as well as the documentation for the Congressional support staff.
The IMLCI “Agile Journey” has just begun and will continue through product implementation.
The first limited deployment or fielding of the program will be in Fiscal Year 2021.