Beginning in late 2026/early 2027 IIS will be updating our performance review process from a service-based review model to a company-wide annual review cycle — and we’re excited about what this means for how we grow, connect, engage, develop and recognize the great work of all team members.

Currently reviews and merit increases are spread across the calendar year, which limits consistent manager engagement. That’s changing.

What’s Changing

• One shared cycle for goal setting, self-reviews, and manager reviews — creating a common rhythm across the entire company
• Monthly check-ins between managers and direct reports, building more consistent engagement and feedback throughout the year (not just at review time)
• Predictable merit and budget planning on one clear cycle for reporting and decision-making instead of a rolling patchwork
• A more balanced workload for managers, who currently juggle reviews scattered across the calendar

Why We’re Making the Change

• Clearer alignment with company goals. Employee performance will be directly linked to annual company and team goals, so everyone can see how their work contributes to the bigger picture.
• More consistent manager check-ins. The new cycle facilitates regular, ongoing conversations between managers and direct reports — not just a single conversation once a year.
• A shared framework for success. Performance will be measured against agreed-upon goals at the corporate, team, and individual levels, helping every employee understand what success looks like and how to achieve it.
• Unified merit and budget planning. Aligning annual merit increases and budget planning to a single review cycle brings more consistency and transparency to compensation decisions.
• A dedicated tool to support the process. We’ll be using Insperity’s Performance Management tool to conduct and process annual reviews, giving managers and employees a streamlined, consistent experience.

We believe this shift will strengthen manager-employee relationships, bring more transparency to how merit and budgets are planned, and create a more consistent, equitable experience for everyone.

More details — including timeline and what to expect — are coming soon. Stay tuned!

It’s been a strong and busy six months for program development and management across IIS. Our teams continue to deliver outstanding results for our customers, win new work, and support one another — and I’m glad to share some of the highlights below.

Contract Wins & Program Growth

IIS received early notice of a fully executed contract modification exercising Option Year 1 of TRITON TO2, our flagship prime contract providing security support services. The government’s decision to exercise this option ahead of schedule speaks directly to the exceptional performance of our IIS and subcontractor staff, who consistently deliver quality, effective mission support. The modification secures funding through November 2026, with additional funding anticipated — great news for program stability and continued growth.

In April, our teaming partner notified us of a follow-on subcontract award supporting a restricted customer. We’re excited to grow our footprint on this program, building on the strong foundation set by our current team member, David Dalvin. This win reflects David’s outstanding performance on the ground, paired with an IIS recompete strategy that accurately read the competitive landscape and the former incumbent’s standing with the customer. Congratulations to David and everyone who supported this effort.

Celebrating Our People

This has been a fantastic period for employee recognition: 25 customer appreciation and spot awards were earned across IIS, with several IISers recognized more than once. These honors are a genuine reflection of the caliber of talent we have across the company — and they do double duty, giving IIS valuable past-performance citations and proof points for future proposals.

If you’ve received an accolade, kudos, or recognition from a customer, please share it with Laurie Ternes and Laura Wood. We want to celebrate your success and make sure it’s captured for the company’s benefit too.

Invest in Your Growth: Training Resources

A reminder that Insperity offers a robust catalog of free training courses and a virtual learning center, available to every IIS employee. Whether you’re looking to sharpen technical skills or build new ones, I encourage you to take advantage of this resource — it’s a great way to keep growing your expertise and your career.

Thank you for the hard work, dedication, and dependability you bring to IIS every day. It’s what makes results like these possible — and I’m looking forward to building on this momentum together in the months ahead.

Artificial intelligence is becoming another tool in the systems engineer’s and architect’s toolbox. Our customers are pushing very heavily to use it as much as possible and with good reason. It can analyze requirements, identify gaps, compare architectures, summarize technical information, assess risks, and explore alternatives.

But using AI effectively requires more than asking a question. The quality of the response depends heavily on how well we define the engineering problem. A good AI prompt defining the problem should be thought of much like an engineering specification.

Think of a Prompt as an Engineering Specification

As systems engineers, we know how to define problems: identify objectives, constraints, assumptions, inputs, outputs, and acceptance criteria. The same discipline applies to AI.

The second prompt gives AI the context needed to produce a far more useful engineering response. The first one? Ugh.

If you ask AI to guess what you mean, chances are it will miss something (or a lot of things) you are after. Don’t make the AI guess what you mean.

The Six Elements of a Good Engineering Prompt

A useful way to construct prompts is to think in terms of six elements:

These elements don’t all need to be present in every prompt, but the more complex the engineering problem, the more valuable they become in getting you better results.

For our sports fans, you can even establish scoring criteria:

“Score each architecture from 1–5 against each criterion and provide a rationale for every score.”

This turns an open-ended response into structured decision support.

So remember…

Using these 6 elements will yield better results from AI.

New Way to Support Your Colleagues: IIS Voluntary PTO Donation Policy

IIS employees have a meaningful way to help one another through hard times: the IIS Voluntary PTO Donation Policy. This program allows employees to donate their own accrued, unused PTO hours to a coworker facing a serious hardship who has exhausted their available paid time off.

How It Works

Why It Matters

This policy offers our team a structured, confidential way to support a colleague through a genuinely difficult time, while still protecting each donor’s own PTO reserves.

Reach out to Human Resources at humanresources@integratedintelsolutions.com.

The competition was fierce, the putts were precise (mostly), and the fun was at an all-time high as the STL team gathered for The Nine Hole Mixer! The course offered plenty of twists, turns, and obstacles, but the team brought their A-game. After the final scorecards were tallied, everyone walked away a winner—if not on the leaderboard, then definitely in the team spirit category. The afternoon wrapped up with some well-deserved refreshments, where we replayed our best shots and laughed off the worst ones. A huge thank you to everyone who came out, brought their competitive spirit and made The Nine Hole Mixer such a memorable outing.

What a spectacular day out on the water!

Our team recently swapped our laptops and desks for some sun and breeze on our Spring Potomac River Cruise. It was the perfect opportunity to unwind, catch up with colleagues, and enjoy some of the best views Washington DC has to offer.

We loved seeing so many faces from across different teams coming together to mingle and enjoy a relaxed brunch together!

All cleared personnel have an obligation to report foreign travel at least 30 days in advance of departure.

Whether you’re planning a vacation abroad or traveling internationally for business, cleared contractors are required to notify the security team before travel. This gives your security officer time to provide a threat briefing and ensure reporting obligations are met.

Before You Travel

1. Log inOpen your Security Control account.
2. Open requestsGo to “My Requests and Reports.”
3. Report travelSelect “Report Foreign Travel” and submit at least 30 days before departure.

Submit your foreign travel report to your security control point at least 30 days before your departure date. Don’t wait until the week before — last-minute submissions put you and your program at risk.

Include your destination country, travel dates, purpose of travel, and any planned contacts with foreign nationals.

Upon return, a post-travel report is also required — check with your security team for specifics. [An email from Security Control will be sent on your reported return date; this must be completed within 5 days to remain compliant]

When in doubt, report early. If plans change or arise unexpectedly, contact Security immediately—even when the 30-day window has passed. Questions? fso@integratedintelsolutions.com