PEO EIS Scrum of Scrums puts “green” on industry best practices

In the midst of U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems’ (PEO EIS) Agile transformation last year, the head of the organization’s Acquisition Innovation Directorate (AID), Aric Sherwood, saw the need for better information sharing at the program level. 

While EIS’ individual portfolios were heavily engaged in upskilling product teams and implementing Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) processes, team members were often so heads-down that they weren’t necessarily sharing experiences and lessons learned with their peers, said Sherwood. 

To address that situation, Sherwood’s AID team quickly established a “Scrum of Scrums” (SoS) that began convening in July 2023 to get team members talking with each other. As defined in EIS’ “Scrum of Scrums Rules of Engagement,” the SoS aims to promote interoperability among EIS programs and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization’s collective Agile methodologies and business system capability efforts. 

Sherwood said that starting the SoS early in EIS’ Agile transformation was important because people had a lot of questions at the time — and often still do. 

“Getting together and sharing info and seeing leadership engaged was critical in our journey,” he said. 

Primarily composed of Agilists, Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and Release Train Engineers, EIS’ SoS is loosely based on an industry model — but adapted to Army needs. 

“We’re a little different in that all of our systems tangentially interface with each other,” said Sherwood, “but they’re all standalone systems.”  

EIS’ virtual SoS meetings are held less frequently than outside the Army — the AID team has been holding them on a monthly basis — and they tend to be larger in size and focused less on products and more on overall information sharing. This approach has proved effective for several EIS programs. 

Following the October 2023 SoS on the Army Training Information System’s Agile approach, the program’s assistant product manager Maj. James Oliver was sought out for dedicated follow-up discussions with representatives from the Foreign Military Sales – Army Case Execution System, Accessions Information Environment and Computer Hardware, Enterprise Software and Solutions product offices.  

Additionally, discussion topics from the SoS have occasionally blossomed into new Agile practices at EIS. The Scrum of Scrums’ kick-off meeting on Agile metrics, for example, eventually led to the establishment of EIS’ metrics-focused monthly portfolio syncs with EIS’ new Program Executive Officer Bill Hepworth — a “big win” in the eyes of Sherwood. 

SoS participants have a say in the monthly discussion topics, some of which bring in outside presenters from organizations like Gartner and the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command. The February SoS will feature a representative from Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground speaking on modular contracting, among other topics.  

Like many other aspects of Army acquisition, EIS’ Scrum of Scrums is about adopting best practices from the private sector and tailoring them to the Army’s needs. 

“It’s an example of how we’re taking industry best practices and putting green on them,” said Sherwood.