Marlin Gets Ready for the #NAVWARBuildathon
We sat down with Mozelle Caswell, a Power Platform Practice Lead at the Marlin Alliance, to discuss the upcoming #NAVWARBuildathon. Mozelle supports the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) with solution framework, development, and system integration.
Q: What does Digital Transformation mean to you?
A: Digital Transformation is the process of incorporating digital features and functionality into areas of an organization where they may not have existed before. We integrate these features into business processes to increase productivity, communication, and process transparency at all levels of the organization. We don’t just digitize existing processes; by transforming those processes, we ensure they fit comfortably into a digital medium, which often involves modernization.
Q: What do you think NAVWAR has accomplished on its Digital Transformation journey?
A: NAVWAR has come a long way when changing the cultural perspective on modernization. One of the gold standards for how NAVWAR is embracing digital transformation is the Functional Authorizing Official (FAO) Routing process and Power App that Rear Admiral Small uses to approve Authorities to Operate (ATOs), sometimes even doing so on his mobile device when walking to and from meetings. The ease in which leadership can consume information and make data-informed decisions is impacting how business is done at NAVWAR in a big way.
Q: What is citizen development? What does embracing the citizen developer’s mindset mean for NAVWAR?
A: The citizen development philosophy lets non-IT users create apps with low-code/no-code tool kits. This practice empowers users to solve business problems without the requirement of a technical background or formal software development. No one knows a process better than the process owner, and if they can automate or digitize small pieces of their process to improve how they do business, the customer and that business office can reap the benefits.
Adopting a citizen developer’s mindset means opening yourself up to the possibility of failure. Government employees and contractors tend to view failure as unacceptable, but facing and overcoming unexpected challenges is critical to citizen development. By embracing citizen development, employees can increase their productivity, effectiveness, and more importantly, reduce the pain points of their roles that often stem from manual processes.
Q: How is Buildathon using the ODIN Platform to help citizen developers?
A: The OneNAVWAR Digital Innovation Nexus (ODIN) is NAVWAR’s instance of Microsoft’s Dataverse which leverages Application Lifecycle Management principles. ODIN is a Development, Testing, and Production environment for Scaled Agile Framework software development. It hosts key enterprise datasets from legacy sources for developers to leverage in their solutions. This allows a “use and re-use" mindset on data that is consistently updated and available enterprise wide, not just for NAVWAR, but for the entire Navy.
The Buildathon is providing learners a sandbox environment where citizen developers can tinker and build with support from the ODIN Team. The sandbox is a segmented environment where citizen developers can build simple solutions using enterprise data with no risk of impact to production applications and end users. The ODIN Team will also demo a number of production applications Buildathon participants to further illustrate the art of the possible.
Q: How do events like Buildathon 2.0 help the NAVWAR organization?
A: Buildathons help demonstrate Flank Speed’s current capabilities to all users across the Navy. These events show the art of the possible to future citizen developers and provide them a learning environment to ask questions, hypothesize solutions to their current pain points, and begin building those solutions that they can leverage in their office immediately.
Q: Any words of advice for the participants in this year’s Buildathon 2.0 event?
A: You will be overwhelmed with information. Don’t let it keep you from simply trying to build something. When you are first starting out, build something that you know. It doesn’t have to be the most beautiful app. Make sure it works. Once it works, what can you do next to make it better? If it’s adding on additional features, go for it. If it’s a face-lift, try that too. Limitations are there, but there are other citizen developers and Navy Champions who I bet already know workarounds to those limits and would be happy to share their knowledge.
#NAVWAR #NAVWARBuildathon #NavyTech #CitizenDevelopment #DigitalTransformation #WomeninSTEM