GFEBS pilot of SAFe Lean Business Case saves time, money for customers

As part of U.S. Army Program Executive Office (PEO) Enterprise’s Agile transformation, which began in late 2022, the organization’s acquisition programs have been implementing Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) principles. One of those principles — the SAFe® Lean Business Case — has helped the General Fund Enterprise Business System (GFEBS) achieve significant efficiencies in recent months. 

The SAFe®) Lean Business Case is used to document the expected business value, costs and benefits of Agile efforts, enabling organizations to measure the impact of their initiatives and make informed decisions about resource allocation. In the case of GFEBS, the product management office team used the principle for its Business Process Control Standard Line of Accounting software enhancement, breaking down the process into multiple phases and ultimately saving their customer around $750,000. 

“With Lean, we’re streamlining from an idea to a statement of understanding to put work in the backlog faster and simplify our solutions, so they can be released faster and built upon over time,” said Carlton White, product director for GFEBS.  

Now that the Lean Business Case has achieved proven efficiencies for smaller GFEBS software enhancements, the product office is starting to pilot it for so-called “major enhancements” of greater than $5 million in value. According to White, the main purpose of the enhancements is to “get after auditability and modernization” in alignment with the Army’s requirement to eliminate costly legacy business systems.  

Ultimately, GFEBS will be combined with other Army enterprise resource planning systems under the Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence initiative. 

“GFEBS has been a solution across the services for many legacy systems,” said White. “Now it’s becoming a modernization tool for the Army and beyond.” He cited the system’s ability to provide financial reconciliation with trade partners and auditability, on top of traditional financial reporting.  

GFEBS, which is part of PEO Enterprise’s Defense Integrated Business Systems portfolio, enables the Army and warfighters by delivering accurate, timely financial data that supports informed decision-making, resource optimization, and mission readiness. It also serves as the Army’s financial backbone, providing essential support to warfighters through integrated resource management, enhanced auditability and operational transparency.