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Photo By Ramon Go | 230202-N-GC965-0038 SAN DIEGO (Feb. 2, 2023) A panel of Naval Information Warfare…… read more read more
Photo By Ramon Go | 230202-N-GC965-0038 SAN DIEGO (Feb. 2, 2023) A panel of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) leaders provided feedback to one of six teams during a Buildathon event, Jan. 31 to Feb. 2. Buildathon helped each team identify problems and solutions using Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Business Intelligence (BI), Dataverse and Microsoft Teams through Flank Speed. (U.S. Navy photo by Ramon Go) see less | View Image Page
Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) hosted its inaugural Buildathon Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, facilitated by the NAVWAR Office of the Command Information Officer (OCIO) and Acquisition and Program Management competency, alongside Program Executive Office (PEO) Digital and Microsoft.
Centered around the Microsoft 365 Power Platform tools that are accessible to the entire NAVWAR workforce through Flank Speed, the Buildathon’s primary goal was to get people more comfortable using Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Business Intelligence (BI), Dataverse and Microsoft Teams through two separate tracks that ran concurrently through the event.
Track 1 was for the six teams that have been involved with the Buildathon since the planning stages last October. These groups identified problems within their organization at an envisioning session in December and participants without any prior Power Platform tools experience underwent basic training leading up to the Buildathon. Organized under a team lead with an adviser from Microsoft, these teams built their functioning solutions for legacy workflows entirely within the three-day confine of the event. The teams included:
• NAVWAR Onboarding – team lead: Rebecca Jaeger
• Fleet Readiness Directorate (FRD) Training Registration – team lead: Steve Martin
• Spinnaker – team lead: Charles Victory
• Policy Accordion – team lead: Tiffany Boatwright
• Government Furnished Equipment (GFE)/Government Furnished Information (GFI) Dataset – team leads: Cmdr. Colin Kane and Cmdr. Dan Follett
• Trip Report – team lead: Todd Meier
Track 2 was intended for the NAVWAR community interested in learning more about Power Platform tools. Taught by Microsoft experts, students got hands-on experience with Power Automate, Power Apps and Power BI by running labs within those programs. There were three workshops held during the event, along with an Ask Me Anything session hosted by a Power Panel of NAVWAR Power Platform users.
NAVWAR Commander Rear Adm. Doug Small spoke at the Buildathon’s kickoff ceremony Jan. 31. He expressed his excitement at seeing what these teams would come up with in three days’ time.
“Foundational to the Navy’s Get Real Get Better is the ability to self-assess. You all have identified a problem to solve and have taken action to try and improve that,” he said. “We have these Power Platform tools at our disposal and we have the ability to innovate towards positive outcomes that can have broad applications throughout the enterprise.”
Command Information Officer Tonya Nishio introduced the concept of a citizen developer to the audience, identifying the teams and workshop participants as innovators who choose to look beyond and broaden their horizons. “There are three skills needed to be a successful citizen developer,” she said. “Knowledge of the problem, willingness to learn and hunger to do better.”
Microsoft defines “citizen development” as the creation of business applications and features by the employees who use them and is an opportunity for business users to stretch beyond their day-to-day activities with innovative ways to improve their own business processes.
The Power Panel of “OG Citizen Developers” each spoke on how they became involved with Power Platform tools to better automate legacy workflows over the past two years since Flank Speed was implemented. The speakers included:
• Dan Jones, PEO Digital, Flank Speed Power Platform owner
• Carlos Andrews, NAVWAR 8.2, digital transformation specialist
• Doug Enos, NAVWAR 6.0, business tools and analysis lead
• Ron Hays, NAVWAR 6.0, project online technical lead
• Jessica Smith, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific, business solutions developer and analyst
Throughout the Buildathon, members of the Power Panel, also known as “ringers,” checked in with all the teams as they roamed around to provide feedback or input as needed and served as a supplemental instructor during the Power Platform 101 workshops of Track Two.
During the Feb. 2 closing ceremony, NAVWAR Executive Director John Pope spoke about his excitement of everyone coming together across the enterprise for the Buildathon.
“I’m extremely impressed with everything I’ve witnessed over the past few days, seeing how everyone is innovating and collaborating as early adopters,” he said. “That attitude of coming together across groups, looking at ways to solve problems differently and caring about your workforce and partners—those are the kinds of things we hope our leaders can embrace, wherever you are in the organization.”
Each of the teams presented their solution to a panel of stakeholders, explaining their challenges and process along the way as well as what they learned about using Power Platform tools and working as a team. They also illustrated the impact of their project by showing how many manpower hours would be saved or their goals for improving the application in the future.
These automations have applications throughout the Navy, like streamlining the onboarding process, creating a policy question and answer repository and automating data from ship inspections. The projects all involve being able to take advantage of real-time data visualization to make data-driven decisions.
The teams showed how their work directly fits into the 2022 Strategic Vector, which is NAVWAR’s mission statement centered around its goals to continue being the world’s preeminent provider of information warfare capabilities. The Buildathon projects fall under the chevrons of “Enable a Data-Driven Culture,” “Develop, Maintain & Modernize Naval Digitalization” and “Drive Data-Informed Decision Making & Digital Transformation.” The Buildathon also supports the same Strategic Vector objectives by educating the workforce about the data tools they have at their disposal.
“Watching you all has made the static chart of the Strategic Vector come to life,” said Pope. “When I look at the things we’re trying to do and saw what the teams are after, the chevrons were lighting up because you all are taking action to embody and accomplish those targets.”
The stakeholders provided their feedback in the form of “I like,” “I wish” and “I wonder” statements. Organized in a similar fashion to the popular TV show “Shark Tank,” the panel included leaders from across the enterprise who work with data and Flank Speed:
• John Pope, executive director at NAVWAR
• Becky Jones, director of digitalization at PEO Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I)
• Grant Kluzak, data director at NAVWAR OCIO
• Juan Ramos, Flank Speed user adoption product owner at PEO Digital
• Ryan Lasiter, director of digital innovation and data at NAVWAR OCIO
• Dan Morwood, Microsoft/NAVWAR liaison
Teams were awarded for their showcases, with each being recognized with a fun superlative to celebrate their hard work during the Buildathon.
“The goal of the Buildathon is to inspire a new generation of citizen developers to lead the next Buildathon and enable that data-driven culture,” said Hays, a member of the Power Panel. “Once it’s over, I hope that everyone involved continues to collaborate and innovate, as well as reach out to each other and myself or other ringers to further improve their workflows.”
Although this is the inaugural Buildathon, it certainly will not be the last. The NAVWAR OCIO is tentatively planning to host them twice a year, with the hope that more and more NAVWAR citizen developers will get involved and lend their efforts to the collaborative culture.
“In a retrospective of the event, we recognized something special that occurred outside of the training and development—the human interaction element,” said Jones, another member of the Power Panel. “People were able to come together and support one another, like all pitching in to buy lunch so everyone could spend more time working on their projects. We have not seen this level of community since pre-COVID, and we certainly hope to see more in the future.”
Please go to the Flank Speed Buildathon Broadcast Landing Page to view recordings of the kickoff and awards ceremony and learn more about the next Buildathon or Power Platform workshops. Resources like the Navy Flank Speed Hub or the Navy Champions Network on Microsoft Teams are also available to access Power Platform trainings and join the Strategic Vector endeavor as a citizen developer.
About NAVWAR:
NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space and through cyberspace. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 civilian, active duty and reserve professionals located around the world.
This work, NAVWAR’s First-Ever Buildathon Inspires the Next Generation of Citizen Developers Using Microsoft Power Platform Tools, by Lily Chen, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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