Pathfinder EBS-C prepares for major milestones in 2024

The Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence (EBS-C) project management office (PMO) at U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) has a pivotal year ahead.  

Sometime in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 — potentially later in January — the PMO will release the request for proposal for its Technical Management and Advisory Support Services (TMASS) contract, which will serve as a follow-on to its existing Technical Services contract for professional services and program management.   

Additionally, key decisions will be made this year regarding EBS-C’s other major ongoing procurement opportunity. Later this spring, the PMO will wrap up the prototyping phase of its acquisition of a software solution for converging multiple Army business systems. Three vendors currently have other transaction authority agreements with the Army to provide proofs of concept for their software solutions in the cARMY cloud environment. Following evaluations later this year, the Army will select the best solution to deliver EBS-C capabilities. 

Besides these two procurement opportunities, the EBS-C PMO is focused this year on its transition to the Software Acquisition Pathway, according to EBS-C Deputy Project Manager Michael Gormley. EBS-C is one of several programs that was designated by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Data, Engineering and Software as a “Pathfinder” to explore the use of DOD Instruction 5000.87 for large software development projects. In December 2023, EBS-C received approval from the Army Acquisition Executive to move to the pathway.  

“Really that’s going to help us to continue in our progress forward,” said Gormley at PEO EIS’ November 2023 Forecast to Industry meeting. “It brings a lot of flexibility to what we’re doing.” 

The EBS-C PMO will continue to grow in 2024. Last year, the organization added seven new team members, and by the third quarter of fiscal 2024, seven more are expected to join the team. Soon thereafter, the PMO will get its first permanent project manager when Lt. Col. Melvin Mitchell assumes the charter. Lee James has been serving as acting PM since the end of March 2023. 

All these developments at EBS-C wouldn’t be possible without the organization’s ability to fully operate in Agile mode.  

“We’re not just doing it — we are agile,” said Gormley.  

The PMO has conducted Scaled Agile Framework training in-house with team members and functional partners and has ensured that industry partners bring their workforces up to speed. From a contracting standpoint, the EBS-C team has built flexibility into its impending TMASS procurement, said Gormley, to ensure that unanticipated short-term developmental needs can be acquired in an Agile way.  

“EBS-C is doing SAFe Agile very well,” said Aric Sherwood, the Acquisition Innovation Directorate leader responsible for establishing PEO EIS’ Lean Agile Center of Excellence (LACE).  

EBS-C established its own LACE in early 2023, according to EBS-C Assistant Product Manager Marquita Harris. Since then, the PMO has been actively involved in setting up SAFe trainings for EBS-C, with invites for other programs as needed, and in producing a monthly newsletter full of Agile information and tips. 

This month, the PMO team and the EBS Multi-Functional Capabilities Team (MFCT), a coalition established for planning and implementing the Army's enterprise resource planning system modernization effort, will hold their third program increment planning event before separately kicking off a new 10-week series of sprints. 

“Agile has been a fairly smooth process for us acquisition-wise,” said Harris. “Thankfully, we have leadership that has been able to back us in ensuring that things are awarded in a timely manner.”