Author: Michael Callihan

Mr. Callihan is President of AEGIS. He is a Project Management Institute (PMI) certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a certified Lean Six Sigma Sensei (LSSS). He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in Information and Decision Systems and Industrial Management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Government Business Executive Forum (GBEF) and a member of the Executive Steering Committee of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST).

Ensuring the right people for the job

The Homeland Security and Defense Business Council recently released The Business of Homeland Security report authored by Grant Thornton that’s part of the 20/20 Project on the Homeland Security Enterprise. The report is based on a survey conducted last summer (2017) of current and former DHS officials as well as industry representatives. The report listed […]

Best of CES 2018

This is my third annual trip report on the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), presented each January in Las Vegas by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). I attended CES as a precursor to the CES Government (CESG) conference which was once again outstanding. But here is my CES 2018 story. Warning, it’s long read! Getting There […]

Latest Lessons from Japan on Agile

Warning to IT – the Japanese industry that gave us the seeds of modern software development methodologies (Lean, Agile) are seeing their models fail. Why? In part, they reduced testing, cut skilled, experienced personnel in favor of less expensive labor, and essentially rubber-stamped inspections (or worse). Lesson: modern methods don’t change human nature. Quality assurance […]

In Memoriam: Marc Genberg

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post to commemorate the life of one of our AEGISians, Marc Genberg who passed away earlier this month. Marc joined AEGIS eight years ago and led our IV&V and automated testing program at the Dept. of State. He also contributed significantly to business development and […]

Test Like You Mean It

Tonight begins the second round of the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs for our hometown Washington Capitals. They have no doubt spent the past few days furiously practicing in preparation for facing the reigning champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins. It occurs to me that as they have practiced, their coaches didn’t just set up orange cones […]

Innovation and Acquisition

At CES Government in Las Vegas this year, I had the privilege of speaking as part of a panel focused on the topic of “Innovation and Acquisition: the Disabling Disconnect.” The central theme was that the federal government continues to struggle with how to get out of its own way in gaining access to the best […]

Best of CES 2017

I realize this is quite long for a blog post, and I apologize in advance for that. Save it for a time when you need some light reading… I made my second consecutive trip to the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year in conjunction with the CES Government conference. As was the case last […]

Book Review: It’s All Upside Down

I had the opportunity last year to do something I had never done before – review and critique a book as it was in development. The book is called, “It’s All Upside Down” written by Paul McMahon, a true pioneer in the software engineering world. Given his impressive track record of authoring some of the […]

Will the Robots Hire Us?

Earlier this month I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas leading up to CES Government, which I believe is the best event of the year bringing government and industry executives together for collaboration. I plan to write another post focused on cool tech I saw at CES, but here I want to focus […]

AEGIS: The Movie

We at AEGIS were so proud to win the inaugural Capability Challenge award from the CMMI Institute earlier this year. Now that it’s time to promote next year’s competition, the Institute has posted a very nice overview of AEGIS. The most exciting part, for us, is the video they published, a short film actually, which […]