Challenge
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Business Process Integration (OBPI) supports VA’s Modernization and process improvement initiatives as the liaison to the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and the Office of Information & Technology (OI&T). OBPI is helping to stabilize and streamline core processes, ensuring that VBA’s business and data systems are properly documented, integrated, and communicated to provide the highest-quality delivery of benefits and services to Servicemembers, Veterans, and their families.
Solution
OBPI engaged Atlas Research to provide comprehensive business process support, including acquisitions, business analytics, process improvement, and strategic planning support services. The Atlas team uses industry best practices and methods such as Agile and Lean Six Sigma to support the design/ modification, implementation, and portfolio management of VBA software applications and systems while also assisting OBPI in the development, implementation, and management of business initiatives.
One of the most critical projects we support is the Education Claims Processing Modernization effort (formerly known as Benefits Delivery Network Retirement, or BDN). BDN is a legacy system used to process education claims/entitlements for Veterans. The Atlas team provides PMBOK and agile project management services and analytic support for the migration of the legacy BDN functionality to newer payment and processing systems (LTS and VETSNET/FAS, respectively). The Atlas team functions as product owners in serving as the voice of the customer, working shoulder to shoulder and attending scrum sessions with business and IT teams to ensure requirements, testing and implementation schedules are met with high quality and delivery expectations.
Result
The Atlas Team continues to support OBPI in the modernization of numerous VBA projects, including:
- Assisting VA Liaison Office/Record Management Center (VALO/RMC) to reduce their footprint while doubling their records handling daily production; the Atlas team provides overall project management for the implementation of five critical recommendations, which were escalated to VBA’s Under Secretary as part of the VA Modernization efforts.
- Supporting the Education Services and Insurance business lines in transitioning to Centralized Mail, eliminating the need for staff to handle paper documents and correspondence; the team is applying agile project management methodology.
- Helping the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program (VR&E) to acquire, customize and modify a new Case Management System (CMS) for VR&E service by providing agile project management, planning, and coordination support.
- Helping to identify education opportunities for Veterans through research and analysis on organizations that rank universities/colleges for Veterans to ensure that if these programs are not offered within the VA, potential partner organizations that cater to Veterans are identified.