Executive summary
In 15 weeks, Scouting America and HTEC shipped three production releases of ScoutConnect, a unified platform serving 1 million members and 225+ local councils — delivering 100% of committed scope plus 45% additional capability, and accelerated by AI-assisted delivery using Anthropic’s Claude and Claude Code. The engagement reduced the cost and risk of modernizing a 116-year-old institution’s technology foundation while establishing a repeatable model for AI-enabled delivery across the organization.
Overview
Scouting America serves approximately 1 million members across 225+ local councils and 40,000+ volunteer-led units. As the organization modernized its digital landscape, multiple initiatives were underway: membership, registration, advancement, data, and AI. Each moving at its own pace, with its own risk of duplicated spend.
The opportunity was not simply to modernize individual systems, but to align these efforts around a shared product vision, platform strategy, and long-term roadmap.
The challenge
HTEC’s engagement began with product discovery and experience design. Early work revealed that while individual user experiences could be improved, the underlying challenge was broader: critical member, family, volunteer, and council journeys spanned approximately 16 interconnected systems, creating complexity across both technology and operations.
For leadership, this complexity showed up as real cost: slower service to families, inconsistent experiences across councils, and rising overhead to maintain systems that no longer matched how the organization actually operated.
Scouting America recognized the need for a more cohesive approach that could connect ongoing modernization initiatives while establishing a foundation for future growth.
The approach
Working closely with Scouting America, HTEC helped define a long-term product vision centred around ScoutConnect, a unified platform designed to connect member acquisition, registration, renewals, family experiences, volunteer operations, advancement, and council services.
The program evolved from a series of independent projects into one integrated transformation — bringing product strategy, design, architecture, engineering, and AI under a single roadmap so every decision, large or small, was made with the long-term platform in view rather than optimizing one project at a time.
AI as a strategic accelerator
AI became an operational capability rather than a standalone innovation initiative.
Using Anthropic’s Claude and Claude Code, teams incorporated AI throughout the product and engineering lifecycle, supporting research, architecture analysis, roadmap planning, software development, and delivery decision-making.
HTEC also facilitated hands-on enablement sessions with Scouting America’s engineering teams, helpingengineers adopt AI-assisted development practices directly in their daily workflow, building an internal capability that will outlast this engagement.
This approach enabled both organizations to explore how AI could improve productivity, accelerate delivery, and support more informed technical decision-making.
Outcomes
The first phase of ScoutConnect established the foundation for future platform development, delivering:
- Three production releases in 15 weeks
- New BeAScout and Online Registration capabilities
- A production-grade platform foundation — payments, localization, and monitoring, built to scale
- 100% of committed scope delivered
- Approximately 45% additional requirements absorbed through active delivery and production learning
AI-assisted delivery — using Claude and Claude Code — was a key driver of this pace, contributing directly to the team’s ability to absorb nearly 45% more scope within the same 15-week window.
The program also received positive feedback from stakeholders and councils as new capabilities were introduced.
“We are excited about the improvements this new platform will bring to our volunteers, units, and families.” – Michael Bullock, Sr. Vice President, CIO at Scouting America.
As the partnership matured, the focus expanded beyond delivery execution to include product planning, platform evolution, and long-term technology strategy.
Looking ahead
The ScoutConnect roadmap continues to expand across membership, family, volunteer, advancement, council, and analytics capabilities.
At the same time, Scouting America is exploring new AI-enabled experiences, including initiatives such as Scoutly+ and Council of the Future, which aim to enhance guidance, operational visibility, and decision-making across its federated council network.
Key takeaway
Working together, Scouting America and HTEC established a more unified approach to product, engineering, and platform modernization. By combining product strategy, architecture, engineering, and AI-enabled ways of working, the organization has created a foundation designed to support both current operational needs and future digital innovation.
For Scouting America’s leadership, this is more than a technology upgrade; it’s a repeatable model for modernizing a legacy, mission-critical institution at speed, without disrupting the volunteers and families it exists to serve.
