WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio -- Help desks. When one reads that simple phrase, a myriad of emotions potentially come forth. Perhaps the labyrinth of our society's dependence on such workstations causes trepidation for you, or maybe you’ve had quite pleasant experiences with skilled technicians on the other end of the phone. Either way, help desks evoke some sort of reaction from all involved. It is unlikely, however, that you consider the United States Air Force's (USAF) core values as part of a help desk's mission.
As the End of Fiscal Year (EOFY) arrived, the Air Force’s core values were on full display with Contracting Information Technology’s (CON-IT) Operation and Sustainment (O&S) team’s, adherence to Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in Everything we do.
With five Airmen running the call center from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. during September, the stream of workflow held overwhelming potential.
With 6,672 total users utilizing CON-IT's services scattered across the globe, and with many of those being first-time users thanks to the Weapon System’s Contracting tool reaching Minimum Viable Product in March 2024, the tool, CON-IT itself, in addition to the Airmen operating and maintaining the software or assisting users, were pressed to the limit.
From mid-Aug. 2024 to Oct. 1, 2024, CON-IT resolved itself for a challenging EOFY.
The O&S team did not despair at the daunting number of tasks before them. Moreover, the team remembered that each ticket, and each call, held another living breathing Airman working on advancing the mission of the USAF in providing needed systems to the warfighter. As such, the O&S team continued in its pursuit of excellence by tackling every single ticket possible.
“The CON-IT helpdesk is efficient, dedicated, and particularly talented, noted 2Lt. Joseph Roy, CON-IT Program Manager. “They receive praise from both users and leadership about their work and they could not have possibly handled this EOFY better.”
The CON-IT's O&S help desk team demonstrated a pure belief in ‘service before self’ and in pursuing ‘excellence in all they did’ throughout the month, and even operated the help desk team call for 35 hours straight during the final hours of the year.
They didn’t shy from the task; they valued their Air Force community, and they did so with sincerity and vigor.
Along with the help desk, the CON-IT ‘Tier 3’ team, which is comprised of developers, testers, and others who can enter into the backend of the system to fix user issues, performed an equally impressive job.
They worked multiple weekends in a row, often with long hours, to assess, develop, and test fixes for user-reported bugs. The challenging nature of their work, along with the complexities of coordinating with users, system designers, and leadership, adds to the impressive feat that they left no EOFY-sensitive incident unresolved. The fruit of these teams’ labor was a 100 percent resolution on EOFY sensitive incidents with a total of 470 incidents resolved by the Tier 2 team and 857 incidents resolved by the Tier 3 team.
Success and victory very rarely equate to an easy or linear path. With CON-IT utilized far beyond the scope and scale of what was seen before; the tool, as all good tools with tremendous strain do, showed signs of wear. Cracks appeared in the system over the weekend from Sept. 27, 2024, to Monday, Oct. 1, 2024.
When the programming language processes slowed, more team members rose to meet the new challenge. Engineers and contractors within CON-IT's cyber team worked together to manually restart the processes needed to ensure contracts made it through CON-IT's system.
"To go into Appian and restart processes manually, you have to be 8510 certified,” said CON-IT Information System Security Officer, Mr. Brandon Madden. “And so, a bunch of engineers that weren’t certified [8510 certified] could not help. Because of this, the cyber team had to jump in and work over the weekend to get CON-IT up and working again. As a result, a small team of five individuals exercised servant leadership and demonstrated service before self, giving up their time over the weekend to close out 1,784 stuck Appian process models. The cyber team helped ensure the success of not just the larger CON-IT team but the entirety of the USAF.”
CON-IT ended Fiscal Year 2024 with over 6,672 total users, 13,956 contract actions awarded in Sept. alone, and a staggering $10.5 billion obligated in Sept. It is worth noting that each of these metrics saw more program records broken.
For Fiscal Year 2024, CON-IT saw an additional $42.5B obligated from a total of 75,181 contracting actions. CON-IT's success ensured countless contracts written and a variety of systems able to move through the acquisition chain for development and future deployment.
While no tool is flawless and all tools will experience failure, one thing was proven dependable, the stalwart men and women of the USAF and their dedication to the values that stand foundational to all aspects of the Air Force's mission.