Powertek
Agile Development for an Improved System Architecture

The need for cyber security to safeguard information is increasing exponentially, while budgets for information management systems continue to decrease. CIOs are now forging new strategies to evolve Cloud, external data centers, and virtual desktops as a means to reduce IT costs and reprogram funds to deal with cyber threats and defend their networks from sophisticated cyber-attacks. Nevertheless, foreign hackers are finding new ways to steal sensitive data, hide their tracks, and degrade capabilities. At the same time, the need for new applications to support decision-making continues to increase. Rockville, MD-based Powertek is addressing these challenges by augmenting their cyber team and establishing strategic alliances with larger IT Solutions vendors to ensure better safety and cost effectiveness of applications development in the evolving market. “We have made significant investments to support automated software build, testing, and continuous integration to enhance application delivery across our Defense systems,” says PJ Bulger, SVP of Powertek. The company offers IT and business solutions, implementing holistic and innovative approaches to meet the customers’ mission needs.

Powertek's solutions span the entire system development life cycle (SDLC), from design and development to integration and operation, all within comprehensive program management and security frameworks. They proffer solutions in enterprise architecture and modernization, systems engineering and integration, cyber security, software development, infrastructure management, and service desk operation. “Powertek closely watches the trends in the market, adapting strategies to align the company with core capabilities that bring value to the customers,” adds Bulger. “We also invest in intellectual capital that can expand our brand awareness and offerings to compete in the full and open environment.” The company supports U.S. Government customers in the defense, law enforcement, and civilian sectors.

An illustration of the company’s powerful solutions is that of providing, Application Development, IT Operations and Project Management support to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), one of its prominent customers.

Powertek closely watches the trend in the market, adapting strategies to align the company with core capabilities that bring value to the customers.

DTIC has long fostered a culture of technical innovation, having adopted Scrum nearly seven years ago. Over time the various Scrum teams became isolated and developed varied and inconsistent artifacts and repositories for sprint and product backlogs, due in large part to their manually intensive approach. Powertek recognized this gap and took steps to standardize DTIC’s approach to Scrum, including implementation of a centralized Scrum management tool. Their solution employed a DevOps approach, which relied on multi-disciplinary teams of IT security specialists, systems administrators, application developers and project managers to design and develop applications with security built-in. Using this approach, new applications can be deployed faster in a mature operational state or with fewer errors; and new functionality can be deployed faster. This benefits the customer by expanding their capabilities in shorter timeframes and enabling greater productivity.

The company’s differentiators start with hiring great talent, aligning them in an organization that cultivates creativity, and branding their services. “Powertek’s philosophy includes hiring the right staff and equipping them with industry certifications to ensure that they remain at the forefront of technology,” asserts Bulger. “By implementing repeatable and measurable processes, our customers have realized returns on their investments through task optimization, workflow consistency, reduction in errors, and increased cost efficiencies.” In the days to come, Powertek will continue to anchor and brand their service offerings as market discriminators. “We will align our people, processes, and tools to set us apart from “commodity providers” while adding value to the services we provide to our customers,” concludes Bulger.