marketing@xentity.com

Big Announcement From Your Friends At Xentity

Today, on May 31, 2013, Xentity was awarded Option Year #1 for the U.S. Geological Survey IDIQ for Enterprise and Solution Architecture. This is the 6th year Xentity has provided outstanding Geospatial Integrated Services and Capabilities and Architecture services to the USGS with incredible results. If you are interested in leveraging our IDIQ contract and accessing our services, then please read the background below and review our USGS IDIQ for Enterprise and Solution Architecture

USGS National Geospatial Program Architecture Background

Xentity provided the USFS with segment architecture development support in Program and Product Planning, Geospatial Data Acquisition, Production Lifecycle Management, Delivery Services, and Resource Management. Xentity also supported analyzing strategic planning and relation to architecture. The Enterprise Architecture (EA) development was based on the defined Federal Segment Architecture Methodology (FSAM).  Also, Xentity supported the transition from development to implementation which included such services as:

  • Blueprint Roadmap Development
  • Governance Formation, Analysis and Consulting
  • Solution Architecture Management Consulting
  • Operational Quality Analysis – Capacity, Availability, Continuity Analysis
  • Business Activity and Role Analysis
  • Planning Support and Consulting
  • Implementation Facilitation Support
  • Change Management and Consulting
  • Service-Level Management Consulting

Additionally, Xentity assisted the USGS in creating a Communication Product Plan. This included:

  • Extraction of the communication products and communication product activities into a singular unified communication product plan.
  • Documented advice and tactics to product and service leads about opportunities unifying and coordinating events for the purpose of (1) increasing presence relating to TNM and USGS brands and (2) making communication product spending more efficient.
  • Documented advice about strategic communication techniques and products, including but not limited to branding rollout, key differentiator message support, Maturity road map support, conducting of customer meetings, and capturing stakeholder positioning statements for products,
  • Training on newer communication concepts such as social media

Xentity Performance

Xentity has had a 100% deliverable acceptance rating by USGS, and delivered on-time and on-budget. Of the 4 blueprints, the resulting 200+ milestones are now being implemented under Xentity supported Program Management Office. Consequently, they are seeing improvements in all areas of their organization.

Xentity’s support in providing solution architecture patterns have resulted in over 100 IT assets now slated for retirement, an increase in usership, and at a lower system cost. The National Geospatial Program (NGP) Director implemented some organizational management improvements, some of which were based on the Xentity supported resource management road-map. USGS NGP has shifted to a prioritized stakeholder-driven model to help better invest in data, product, and service content and features the users want/need.

Operation Centers have taken to using new internal management processes and tool-sets such as online document management collaboration and wikis, online issue/task tracking, migration for some NGP products and services, and some early adoption of using Agile Project Management techniques to increase output.

Also…

In Communications, Xentity provided the following services to the USGS on this contract. From supporting a few hundred person inaugural The National Map user conference with a very well received brand treatment and event strategies. Conference support also included pre, during, and post event functions such as A/V coordination, feedback mechanism, last-minute event communication product generation, to seeing new social media accounts and other tools as recommended in the product communication sequence plans. Product Leads have received multiple communication training sessions which included coaching on Influencing/Sales skills to P&S Leads. Consulting on visual ID compliance, and Advising and Consulting with the timing, communication paths, relationships, and other critical success factors.

User relevancy is critical as prior to 2008, usage was actually on the decline. Xentity directly supported in setting up the inaugural National Map User Conference for May 2011. The results of program usership and product access generally saw a 25% uptick in usage. Delivery usage post-conference saw a jump in increased usage, which continues to grow.  Delivery Solutions architecture has continued to see higher usership and relevance to its users. All while not increasing the IT footprint, and in many places decreasing it while increasing service operation qualities. Thus far, we at Xentity are proud of our efforts. Also, we hope to continue to do more good during this project.