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Army Aviation Magazine: The Evolution of a Sticky Note, on building NYX with its users

April 30, 2025 | ARMY AVIATION Magazine

This article ran in the April 30, 2025 issue of ARMY AVIATION Magazine, published by the Army Aviation Association of America, as part of its Special Focus on Army Special Operations Aviation (pages 38 and 39). It was written by the Mission Planning Branch Chief at the Army Special Operations Aviation Command Systems Integration and Management Office at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, writing under the pseudonym CW4 Tom Dillard. It describes how NYX, an aviation mission planning application developed by TheIncLab, was built with 160th SOAR(A) end users, a government Product Owner and subject matter experts.

What the article covers

  • End users were involved from day zero. Special operations pilots and operational staff took part in Vision Sprints and User Centered Design Sprints with TheIncLab’s product team, along with usability testing and iterative reviews.
  • Early user input shaped features such as map overlays, first limit indicator-based power management, and data interoperability with other mission planning tools.
  • A full-time government Product Owner, the Mission Planning Branch Chief, manages the development backlog, prioritizes features, supervises Operational Testing and takes part in program increment planning, sprint planning and retrospectives.
  • When pilots identified a need for additional hover performance data, the Product Owner scoped the requirement, worked with the developers on data accuracy and prioritized it so the capability could be tested by end users at the next Operational Test.
  • Subject matter experts from the 160th SOAR(A) helped clarify operational requirements, validate technical accuracy and shape feature priorities through bi-weekly sprint ceremonies, including refining NYX’s real-time collaboration tools for planning across a planning cell.

By fostering this early collaboration, the development team ensured that NYX would be a tool designed with its users, rather than for them.

CW4 Tom Dillard, ARMY AVIATION Magazine, April 30, 2025
Read the full article (PDF)

Learn more about NYX.