NASA ALPS: Winning the Pitch, Then Building the Proof

NASA ALPS: Winning the Pitch, Then Building the Proof

CLIENTNASAPILLAREngineeringSERVICESCloud-Native App Dev / SAFe / CI/CD / AWS

Highlights

  • Won two consecutive NASA Innovation Challenge competitions to fund and validate the project, competing in NASA’s internal “program described by participants as Shark Tank” for the agency
  • Guided NASA from mission statement to working software using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
  • Delivered on-budget and on-time, validating scope and effort estimates for a complex, agency-wide system
  • Cloud-native prototype deployed via CI/CD to NASA’s AWS-based Managed Cloud Environment
  • Continuous stakeholder involvement allowed real-time course correction as user priorities evolved

Challenge

NASA’s eleven field centers had an uneven library experience. Some centers had fully staffed libraries. Others had none. Staff at every center needed access to the same resources, including subscriptions, research databases, and reference materials, but the experience of getting there varied widely depending on where a person worked. Managing subscriptions across centers without duplication of effort added another layer of inefficiency.

NASA’s goal was straightforward in concept and complex in execution: provide equal, agency-wide access to library resources through a single, digital-first platform. The challenge was not just technical. It required aligning stakeholders across a large, distributed organization, establishing a shared understanding of scope and priorities, and delivering a working prototype that could demonstrate the feasibility of the full system.

The project needed funding. V! Studios and the NASA team brought the concept to NASA’s internal innovation competition, a competitive pitch program that NASA staff describe as Shark Tank for the agency. WeThey won two years in a row.

Action

With competition wins providing funding and internal validation, V! Studios implemented the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to structure the development of a prototype for the Agency Library Portal System (ALPS).

The engagement began with a tailored version of GSA 18F’s Inception process, a structured approach to federal product vision that V! Studios adapted to NASA’s context. Working with the product owner and key stakeholders, the team moved from the ALPS mission statement through the definition of an initial product backlog, establishing shared priorities and a clear direction before a line of code was written.

From there, the team worked in iterative cycles, delivering increments of both documentation and working, cloud-native software at each stage. Each increment was deployed via a CI/CD pipeline to NASA’s AWS-based Managed Cloud Environment (MCE), making the evolving system available for review and testing by business stakeholders and library subject matter experts throughout the process. This kept the people with the deepest understanding of user needs directly in the feedback loop, allowing priorities to shift and the product to course-correct in response to what was learned rather than what was assumed at the outset.

The project concluded on budget and on time.

Result

The ALPS prototype demonstrated that a single, agency-wide digital library platform was achievable, and that the scope, architecture, and effort required are now validated by working software rather than a document. NASA had a concrete foundation from which to plan the full system build.

The on-budget, on-time delivery confirmed the accuracy of V! Studios’ project estimates and planning approach, a meaningful signal in a federal environment where technology projects routinely exceed both. The two Innovation Challenge wins, earned against other internal proposals, provided independent validation of the concept before development began.

The continuous involvement of stakeholders and library subject-matter experts throughout the iterative process produced a prototype closely aligned with actual user needs, reducing the risk that full development would reveal fundamental mismatches between the system and the people it was built to serve.

Impact

ALPS is an unusual case study in the federal technology space because the project began with a competitive pitch rather than a task order. V! Studios helped make the case to NASA’s own internal evaluators that the problem was worth solving and that the approach was sound, before the work was funded. That is a different kind of engagement than executing against a defined requirement, and it reflects a level of investment in the client’s mission that goes beyond the contract.

The SAFe methodology and CI/CD architecture were not chosen because they were current or fashionable. They were chosen because an agency-wide library platform serving 11 centers with different needs, priorities, and existing infrastructure required a development approach that could absorb change without losing momentum. Delivering working software at every iteration, rather than a final product at the end, meant that by the time the prototype was complete, NASA already understood what it was getting.