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MIDAS was chartered in 2007 to provide a long-term solution to update FSA’s antiquated technology and re-engineer business processes. In that same year, the MIDAS Mission Needs Statement was developed and signed by the FSA Administrator.

From 2008-2010, the project government team grew from five to 30 full-time employees and MIDAS completed seven major acquisition awards. The Project Management Office was established and began to lay the groundwork for project plans.

In March 2010, the USDA awarded a major contract to improve the delivery of agricultural services and benefits to farm producers by using reliable, secure, and modern technology. FSA was one of the first agencies to use the Application Transformation and Modernization (ATM) Blanket Purchase Agreement to support the implementation and development of MIDAS. A series of 22 Listening Session Tours provided feedback from the USDA field office employees and producers about the effectiveness of service delivery and clarified the direction for the future of MIDAS. In late 2010, the MIDAS governance framework was established and Blueprinting began.

The Blueprinting phase serves to identify requirements of the MIDAS system and produce scope, design and definition of the future solution. During this phase, from May 2011 through August 2011, the MIDAS Project Team completed a live demo tour in several locations across the United States to show how SAP can function with FSA data and processes to fit the business needs. Blueprinting concluded in December 2011 and the project immediately transitioned into the Realization Phase, designed to prepare for the release of the Initial Operating Capability (IOC). The IOC will include a subset of the planned MIDAS capabilities and the remaining capabilities will be released in future phases. This iterative release process will allow certain system capabilities to be introduced into the field sooner and more efficiently, allowing the MIDAS project to move forward without delay.

Throughout 2012, the Realization phase will establish the solution landscape, create the necessary training materials, prepare for data migration, and implement the final solution in Development. Ultimately, this phase aims to build and test the complete system environment and obtain business approval. As the project moves along an aggressive timeline towards deployment, the project team will begin transitioning to the final phases of the project, providing support and maintenance to the new MIDAS system. These final phases include: “Final Prep,” “Go Live & Support,” and “Run.”