Experience

There is nothing more important than staying connected to the warfighter when building and deploying technology. Fuse engineering teams focus first on the user, especially when working with systems that support our troops deployed around the world. Fuse utilizes design thinking to ensure we create software, hardware, and networking solutions—as quickly and efficiently as possible—that meet the needs, requirements, and desires of our users and warfighters.

Align: Alignment of the design/development team, the warfighter, and the program are of paramount importance to success. Common understanding of requirements, goals, and constraints ensures rapid development and on-target delivery. Through collaborative review of cost, schedule and performance, risks, and user needs, the project is targeted for success. Alignment of the team with a central common vision, bought into by all stakeholders can mitigate potential problems or future disagreements. By tying the alignment of requirements to specific phased milestones Fuse helps the program move forward and resolve conflicts.

Explore & Define: Exploration, guided by an understanding of goals and constraints informs the design and development process. Exploration builds on top of the information gathered through alignment of the team and opens doors into new insights that can drive design in innovative directions. Fuse will typically utilize use cases and assess specific capabilities of select technology components. This assessment will be more than just a technology evaluation, but an in-depth investigation of procedures, workflows, actions, and effects. Rapid prototyping approaches may be utilized to explore physical design opportunities and software design approaches. The explore phase will build the foundation of concrete data that we will use to move in the right direction and inform formal System Requirements Review by stakeholders. 

Design & Demonstrate: Development sprints build from the knowledge created through the explore and design phase. Each sprint is guided by our internal user advocate to deliver incremental capabilities across the underlying information architecture. Fuse openly collaborates and shares with the client throughout the design and development phase to ensure continued alignment between operational and engineering divisions, and alignment with the warfighter and other stakeholders. Culmination of the research data exposed through the exploration phase leads the team to a Preliminary Design Review attended by all stakeholders.

Develop & Test: Testing is an integral part of the Team Fuse development process. At the end of each sprint, code updates, refinements, and changes are committed and tested. Within our Scrums, we utilize requirements mapping and user focused stories for evaluation of features within internal test cycles. Each of these functions is mapped to system and end-user requirements. By carefully evaluating procedures and eliminating processes that are redundant or low-value, Fuse ensures our software development process is efficient and results-oriented. Fuse collects user feedback through an extensive user evaluation effort conducted at the completion of each sprint. It is important to note development of the next sprint begins concurrent with the feedback and evaluation phase of the previous sprint. This aspect provides a dynamic process, reducing delays and maximizing efficiency by ensuring development continues together with the evaluation process. Following a successful CDR, the program will finalize development and productization activities to prepare for release of version 1.0 of the system.

Verify & Deploy: The verify and deploy phase builds required documentation, training, and support components around the finalized system. With a clear understanding of the warfighter and the user environment, Team Fuse can adapt data that has been used throughout the design process to form the core of system documentation. Interface Description Documents, Interface Control Documents, System Description Documents, production documents, user manuals, troubleshooting guides, and maintenance manuals are developed with the same process used to develop software components for the system.

Support: Fuse provides continuing support of deployed systems to ensure ongoing security, patches, and updates are distributed in a timely manner. Technicians are able to answer questions regarding system installation, configuration, and operation. If in-depth issues are discovered, the Fuse Team software engineers are available for troubleshooting online or in person depending on the needs of the user. Through the troubleshooting process, Fuse continually gathers user feedback and analytical data regarding system employment.

Design Thinking

Fuse design thinking applies the best practices of commercial design with a focus on the warfighter. Design thinking is a proven, optimistic approach to problem solving that embraces learning through informed prototyping and testing with a target user group.

Designing collaboratively allows the team to move beyond traditional product development by helping to build empathy for the user and gain knowledge about the difficulties the user encounters. By steadily implementing feedback and additional data into each new iteration, a solution can be honed to perfection and then adapted to changes in users’ needs and tastes over time.

Fuse Design Processes

Our unique design processes incorporate user input at all stages of development.

• Warfighter workshops (design thinking and user research)
• Use case scenarios and flow mapping
• Collaborative ideation
• Ethnography and contextual research
• Customer journey mapping
• User flows, UI wireframing, and mockups
• Hands on prototyping
• User function exploration
• Quantitative and qualitative data prioritization
• Agile development sprints with iterative development

Design Experience

Fuse design experience spans a range of design disciplines, including:

• User experience (UX) design
• User interface (UI) design
• Graphic design
• Concept development
• 2D and 3D visualization
• Mechanical and industrial design
• Complex systems and electrical design
• Environmental design

Warfighter Workshops

The goal of a warfighter workshop (WFW) varies depending on the point in the life of a project it is held. Overall, however, the goal is to build empathy for the users and customers associated with a target problem space, which will inform design decision making, actions, and product features. It is an opportunity to prioritize and validate existing requirements derived from the contract or customer and, potentially, to add additional requirements from the warfighter.

Warfighter workshops build a working relationship between users (warfighters), experts, and stakeholders and the Fuse engineering and design team. This allows the Fuse team to gather and verify information and insights about the users, environments, requirements, and situations associated with a target problem space, while allowing our customers to have a direct impact on the solutions designed and engineered for them.

How do Warfighter Workshops Work?

We bring together your warfighters, users, experts, and stakeholders to collaboratively work through a problem, so we can provide a better solution.

What is the goal of a WFW?

The goal of a WFW may vary depending on the point in the life of a project it is held, but overall, the goal is to build empathy for the users and customers associated with a target problem space, which will inform design decision making, actions, and product features. It will be an opportunity to prioritize and validate any existing requirements derived from the contract or customer, or potentially add additional derived requirements from the warfighter.

Why does Fuse do WFW’s?

WFWs build a working relationship between users (warfighters), experts, and stakeholders with the Fuse engineering and design team. This allows the Fuse team to gather and verify information and insights about the users, environments, requirements, and situations associated with a target problem space, while also allowing our customers to have a direct impact on the solutions designed and engineered for them.