DevOps has been a key driver in United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) breaking silos and becoming an innovator in federal IT, enabling a continuous flow of new functionality directly to public and internal users. But it wasn’t until we rethought the nature of the partnership between IT and “the business” that our ability to deliver on the mission truly transformed into “continuous value delivery”.

USCIS has embarked on a vision of going paperless, in place of a system legendary for shipping reams of paper throughout the United States and the world every day in order carry out the agency’s core case processing duties. Through this journey to digital transformation, the need for an involved, responsive, and collaborative partnership between business and technology stakeholders has become imperative.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Lloyd will reflect on how they worked together to strategize, reorganize, and prioritize to truly share the business value delivery decision-making. Team structures were changed, technical approaches reconsidered, and business process flows were re-engineered. The people in the field became authentic partners instead of “receivers of product”. Success was no longer measured by the number of featured delivered, but instead by how effectively and efficiently field staff could do their jobs. Business performance metrics became the primary measures of IT success. It is this collaborative business/IT partnership that is key to the success of a modern federal enterprise.