3 Powerful Architecture Lessons for Building Systems

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;06;24
Nick Powers
Mandy, one of the longest-tenured folks here at UNCOMN, right? What, ten years? Ten-plus years?

00;00;06;24 – 00;00;08;10
Mandy Sater
Almost ten years in October.

00;00;08;11 – 00;00;13;26
Nick Powers
Wow. That’s amazing. And that’s following a military career, right?

00;00;13;26 – 00;00;14;08
Mandy Sater
I was in the Air Force.

00;00;14;08 – 00;00;31;23
Nick Powers
Ten years in the Air Force. Excellent. Thank you for your service. We’re very proud of our veterans here at UNCOMN, that’s for sure. It’s a big part of who we are and a big part of our culture. It’s definitely been a great journey having you on the team. Can you imagine where you are today compared to where you were ten years ago?

00;00;31;23 – 00;00;52;16
Mandy Sater
No. It’s pretty amazing, actually. And it’s scary. Transitions are really scary. Anytime you transition from one thing to another, and when you’ve been in a position for a long time, transitions are scary. But I came to Aegis, and it was like finding another home. So it was pretty awesome.

00;00;52;17 – 00;01;17;08
Nick Powers
I appreciate that. We really do try to make it feel that way. Sometimes our lawyers tell us we can’t, but you’ve had this really cool journey over the last several years. Originally, weren’t you kind of in our J5 for space? Talk a little bit about that, because you’ve now transitioned over to being probably one of our best architects.

00;01;17;08 – 00;01;23;10
Nick Powers
So tell me a little bit about what you were doing in the beginning and how that relates to what you’re doing today.

00;01;23;13 – 00;01;42;03
Mandy Sater
Yeah. In the beginning, harnessing my Air Force experience as a planner and a logistician, I slid into the J5. They’ve been re-orged a bunch of times, but I slid in there and was doing campaign planning for TRANSCOM. It was really cool. It was really fulfilling work, and I really enjoyed it.

00;01;42;03 – 00;02;06;04
Mandy Sater
Along the way, Jim Phelps was whispering, “Hey, you should do some architecture stuff. You should learn some BPM, and you should do this.” So I started learning a little bit about it. I attended one of Wayne’s boot camps, and I really started to enjoy it and understand what process modeling is.

00;02;06;04 – 00;02;23;13
Mandy Sater
It makes a lot of sense as a logistician to lay out a process, like a linear process, and lay it out step by step. It really made sense to me, and it became fun. Then, when the opportunity came, I had been in the vault for five years. I was like, “I need to get out of here.”

00;02;23;13 – 00;02;27;04
Mandy Sater
Five years. That’s a long time.

00;02;27;04 – 00;02;27;28
Nick Powers
Yeah, there you go.

00;02;27;28 – 00;02;43;06
Mandy Sater
So five years hit, and I was like, “Let’s do something different.” They said, “Well, we have this cool contract called EADE.” I was able to get on board with that contract, and the rest is kind of history.

00;02;43;06 – 00;03;09;18
Nick Powers
Yeah, for sure. You talked a little bit about being a logistician. You know me, I don’t have a military background, but I’ve been around enough to know there are a lot of moving pieces when we’re trying to do a movement, whether that means trying to load up a bunch of trains and move something across the country, correctly load-plan and load a C-17, or all these other elements.

00;03;09;18 – 00;03;42;19
Nick Powers
You talked about it: there’s a process. You have to be rigorous in the process because if you don’t, people’s lives are at stake in some regard. Because of that rigor you’ve had and that you’re used to, how has that translated into architecture, the way we do architecture? What I’ve been told by other people is that they really appreciate the rigor we put into it, the quality, and that they always know what we’re giving them because we adhere to certain standards. Is there a way to relate that back to being a logistician?

00;03;42;19 – 00;03;44;04
Nick Powers
In a way?

00;03;44;06 – 00;04;16;06
Mandy Sater
Definitely. Processes are critical and inherent, and they lead to good quality and a predictable outcome. That’s what we want. We want to deliver high-quality products that make sense and that are tailored to what our customer and client need. When we can do that, our value goes up because they know what they’re going to get when they get a product from UNCOMN.

00;04;16;10 – 00;04;36;13
Mandy Sater
We have various checks and balances built into our systems with our configuration managers, and all of our team leads ensure that the quality is being met as well. I think we provide that. And let’s talk about our training for it.

00;04;36;13 – 00;05;00;12
Mandy Sater
There are hardly any places that do the amount of architecture training that we do. We have a skilled group of architects, master architects, who know what to do. Heck, one of the guys wrote a book about it. We know what we’re talking about when it comes to architecture. We train the people to do it, and then we continuously manage the quality of our products.

00;05;00;12 – 00;05;21;08
Nick Powers
That’s awesome. Training is definitely important. We had a customer in the last couple of months make a comment about “the crazy architecture factory in the Midwest” that you guys have. That’s coming from an East Coaster, right? But they’re starting to see it. They’re starting to realize that we take this very, very seriously.

00;05;21;08 – 00;05;38;28
Nick Powers
At the end of the day, architecture doesn’t have to be just about compliance, because I think ten years ago, that’s what everybody chalked it up to. It was a requirement that had to be met by a piece of paper sliding across a desk with a signature on it. That’s all it was. You put it in a filing cabinet, and you go away.

00;05;38;28 – 00;05;47;17
Nick Powers
But that’s not what architecture is to us, right? It’s more than that. What are we trying to do with architecture now?

00;05;47;19 – 00;06;14;15
Mandy Sater
I can’t speak to right now because I’m a little bit removed from it, but I can tell you that one of the intents behind architecture is to be able to build systems the right way from the beginning. If you do it from an architecture standpoint, you build the building blocks. We talk about building the airplane in flight, right?

00;06;14;15 – 00;06;30;15
Mandy Sater
You don’t want to do that. Typically, you don’t. You want to build it on the ground. You want to test it before you get it up in the air. I think you can use architecture at the beginning of a system or at the beginning of development, and that will help build it the right way so all the connections are there.

00;06;30;15 – 00;06;56;19
Mandy Sater
They meet all the security requirements that are necessary, and you know where everything goes. You have order to a system. Whereas a lot of times, we’re doing it backwards. We are reverse-engineering our architecture on a system that was previously made, and maybe there have been multiple updates to it. So then you don’t know where everything goes, and you’re having to do all this extra work to try to do that backward tracing.

00;06;56;19 – 00;07;10;24
Mandy Sater
We talk a lot about systems engineering, too. That’s where systems engineering comes in, so that you can engineer it and build it from the beginning, as opposed to having to do it from the end.

00;07;10;24 – 00;07;11;21
Nick Powers
Architecture first.

00;07;11;25 – 00;07;12;06
Mandy Sater
Yes.

00;07;12;06 – 00;07;12;15
Nick Powers
Right.

00;07;12;17 – 00;07;13;03
Mandy Sater
For sure.

00;07;13;04 – 00;07;29;00
Nick Powers
That’s why, when you talked a little bit about systems engineering, we’re starting to use model-based systems engineering tools. One of the things I really appreciate about it is the rigor we put into helping design and build up a system.

00;07;29;00 – 00;08;01;19
Nick Powers
We also now have the ability to tie all the systems together in these tools. So if I make a change to one, we can now see the ripple effect of how it impacts the others. That’s a huge deal. It’s a game-changing ability that companies haven’t had before. Have you seen any examples, as you’ve worked in architecture, where you’ve had a moment with a customer where you showed them something, or you showed them second- or third-order effects, and they were kind of like, “Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize that was possible”?

00;08;01;19 – 00;08;04;29
Nick Powers
Something like that?

00;08;05;01 – 00;08;32;01
Mandy Sater
Yeah. It’s all about the systems you use, the tools you use to model those systems. They’re powerful tools. Whenever you create those models, you can show layers, show connectivity, take stuff in and out, and display it in a tangible way.

00;08;32;03 – 00;08;54;02
Mandy Sater
You can depict where those connectivities are and where those layers are. You can take stuff away, or you can show them through a dashboard or by bringing up the model itself. I think that goes so far, as opposed to printing out a big, giant map that’s static. It doesn’t change. You can’t show layers. You can’t do anything.

00;08;54;02 – 00;09;13;13
Mandy Sater
But if you can pull up the tool you’re using and show them, with just a couple of clicks, where the system is going, where the information is coming from, and if you take out a system or a node, what happens? Where are your vulnerabilities?

00;09;13;13 – 00;09;32;24
Mandy Sater
I think that especially applies to the work we do with the Department of Defense. If we have these critical systems and something happens to one of those critical systems, a node goes down, or there’s some sort of attack, what’s the result? What’s the impact?

00;09;32;25 – 00;09;49;22
Nick Powers
The impact. Yeah, for sure. The interesting thing is it ties back to being a logistician because you had to do the same thing with supply chains, suppliers, and impacts on those things. If we take this route, do we have a higher likelihood of being attacked, or that route? All those considerations, right?

00;09;49;22 – 00;10;08;09
Nick Powers
That’s where we do a lot of modeling, simulation, and logistics. We are finally at a point with some of these tools in architecture where we can do the same thing. We can model and simulate impacts on systems and understand the risk and likelihood of changes that could impact them and really take things down for us, which is pretty exciting.

00;10;08;09 – 00;10;09;03
Mandy Sater
Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

00;10;09;07 – 00;10;32;11
Nick Powers
Another thing you’ve done really well for us as a company is you’ve given back a lot. You’ve run a lot of organizations for us. I think you’ve led several organizations, maybe our Christmas efforts, and you’ve helped with some of our women’s organizations. Tell me a little bit about some of those things you’ve been able to work with over the last several years, because it has had a huge impact on our company.

00;10;32;11 – 00;10;39;01
Nick Powers
A huge impact.

00;10;39;04 – 00;11;03;01
Mandy Sater
Oh, yeah. I was the Enterprise Solutions lead for a few years. More than a few, probably. I really, really enjoyed my time working with the Community of Practice. It was really cool to be able to impact so many people. We have 100 people in our Community of Practice.

00;11;03;01 – 00;11;25;08
Mandy Sater
It’s cool to be able to ask for training topics and really get to connect with all the people in our community and provide them with valuable and—

00;11;25;10 – 00;11;30;03
Nick Powers
Impactful. Life-changing training, right? You’re helping develop these folks into something else.

00;11;30;03 – 00;11;49;07
Mandy Sater
Yeah, we’re helping evolve them into something. But also, it’s a community. It’s building that village because we have a lot of people who aren’t necessarily on campus all the time. They may not have built that community, and they may feel isolated. That’s part of the Community of Practice, too: to help build that community and have resources.

00;11;49;10 – 00;12;07;18
Mandy Sater
If there are any questions or issues, we’ve helped people get connected with our HR team, which is fantastic. Then, on top of it, there’s the morale-building, which is probably the most fun part of the job: getting out there and getting to do fun things with people.

00;12;07;18 – 00;12;25;15
Mandy Sater
You build those relationships, and you get to do fun things. It’s very rewarding to interact on so many different levels with such a great group of people. So with the Community of Practice, and then just Friday, UNCOMN partnered with this Sisters in Service organization.

00;12;25;18 – 00;12;50;13
Mandy Sater
Which is absolutely cool. I joined up. I was like, “Sign me up. I’m here.” Basically, it’s a group to help connect female veterans and help them build that community. In the military, you have such a great community of people. It’s really kind of weird. Even serving in a non-deployed fashion, you build these connections.

00;12;50;13 – 00;13;12;29
Mandy Sater
It is a brotherhood and a sisterhood, for sure. Then you leave it, and it’s so lonely and so hard because you don’t have that community. That’s what the Sisters in Service organization does: it helps female veterans build that community back. Because they’re veterans, you all have this common ground. You can meet another veteran. I’ve got a couple friends over there I didn’t serve with, but because we know what our background is, instantly there’s a connection.

00;13;12;29 – 00;13;19;24
Mandy Sater
Right?

00;13;19;24 – 00;13;45;13
Nick Powers
Right. It’s incredible how the military—the training, the experience, the processes you’ve gone through—creates something that people like me don’t have. I have no idea what you’ve gone through in your career and what others have gone through in their careers, but I can tell there’s always a link there. There’s always something.

00;13;45;13 – 00;14;00;26
Nick Powers
Even if it’s very far-fetched, you guys have so many things in common that you can relate to each other and support each other. I know that’s incredibly important, especially after you move on from the military. It can be very, very hard. I’ve seen a lot of that as we hire a lot of veterans here.

00;14;00;26 – 00;14;13;09
Nick Powers
A lot of times, we hire them as they’re retiring, and that first 6 to 12 months can be very, very tough. I really appreciate all the work you’ve done to help veterans, help our employees, and bring people together. It’s been tremendous. Awesome.

00;14;13;11 – 00;14;13;28
Mandy Sater
I appreciate it.