Case Study – U.S. Department of Education: 𝝝 ta-daas! How Agile Discovery led to ED.gov Modernization

THE CHALLENGE

theta. was contracted with the U.S. Department of Education (E.D.), Office of Communications and  Outreach to assist in developing strategic agency planning for the ED.gov re-design and modernization of the agency’s wide range of digital services assets. 

Project Name: Digital Services Modernization
Sponsoring Agency: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Communications and  Outreach
Project Sponsor	Deputy Assistant Secretary, OPE / Chief Data Officer
CIO Sponsor	Chief Information Officer
CFO Sponsor	Chief Financial Officer
Special Emphasis Category: Public-Facing Digital Services

THE PROJECT

As a strategic part of the initial steps of the planning and funding efforts for the Department of Education’s digital services modernization, theta. assisted the agency in submitting a Final Project Proposal (FPP) to the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). The TMF is overseen by the Technology Modernization Board, composed of Agency level Federal Government Chief Information Officers & Information Technology leaders. Federal Agencies submit technology modernization proposals to the Board for review and consideration through a two-phased approval process. The Final Project Proposal (FPP) entails creating a more comprehensive technical description of the proposal, discrete project milestones, and funding schedules.

For this theta. agile – discovery as a service (𝝝 ta-daas) project, Team theta. focused on analyzing specific business processes, data, and operational use cases to demonstrate business value, reduce risk, and lower uncertainty while providing modern technical capabilities for users at a lower price point with a small agile team.

THE RESULT

Project Organization & Innovation: 

Business, compliance, cyber-security risks, and financial challenges were discovered for all stakeholders expected to operate within the current traditional and new modernized IT ED.gov digital services.
Directly addressing those risks ensures that we mitigate impediments for all future ED.gov digital solutions, services, and products to maximize the effectiveness of information sharing in one of the largest public-facing sites in the American education ecosystem.

Business Risks: Current digital inventory has accrued technical debt, while Ad hoc efforts to modernize ED.gov in the past have been unsuccessful. The Department has multiple content management systems (CMS), two of which are at or approaching the end of life. A business risk is not learning from previous efforts, not innovating, and utilizing agile processes to execute on implementation. The goal being a Shared Service Model for modernizing CMS and suitable standards for digitized forms solutions throughout the entire E.D. digital landscape.

Innovations: Tactical Sequencing Delivering new digital solutions requires tactical sequencing in stages to re-architect and re-design the Department’s digital assets & digital portfolio to simultaneously establish an improved content strategy, enhance the user experience, and unify operations utilizing a shared service model for content management.

Cyber-Security: Modern cyber-secure ED.gov site solutions are needed

Innovations:  Formalize agency policy for an expedited  ATO.** Develop new cybersecurity capacity and boundary parameters for ED.gov, and establish containers in secured landing zones to reduce risk in the cloud environment. 

(**Authority to Operate –  an authorization process that a software system needs to have before the agency can use it in a production environment. The ATO is an essential component of information systems under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)).

The attention to technical detail, cost-effectiveness, and timely, responsive communications of Team theta. were all instrumental factors in successfully completing this agile discovery stage service contract for the U.S. Dept of Education.

 

Contract Details & Numbers
GSA contract#: 47QTCA18D00F9 
Category (SIN): I.T. Professional Services (5451S)
Award ID (Mod#): 91990921F0008
Award Type: DELIVERY ORDER 
Contracting Agency: EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF
Contracting Office: OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH
NAICS (Code): COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN SERVICES ( 541512 )
SAM Unique Entity ID: HJFJGUQ5KCX4
web: https://theta-llc.com/
ph: 443.686.9571
DUNS: 079735686
Socio-economic status: HUBZone SDB
CAGE: 7EWJ9

For further information on this or other future projects, contact:
Emmanuel “Mannie” Iroanya, MMBR & Founder
email: emmanuel@theta-llc.com    
ph: 410.739.0627