SWAT

The Software and Technology team is a special forces unit at Oliver Wyman that uses specialized equipment and tactics. First created in 2016 to support OW Labs in delivering technically challenging projects, the number and usage of SWAT teams is expected to increase in the coming years due to ongoing global expansion. In the United States and the United Kingdom today, SWAT agents are deployed dozens of times every year, ensuring a smooth delivery of projects for Oliver Wyman's clients, most often acting as Tech Leads. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with enterprise-grade hardware and software and are trained to deploy against threats of scope-creep, sluggish enterprise IT, poor software design, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary developers, sometimes deemed "high-risk." Other countries such as Ireland are currently developing their own special forces units that are also described as or compared to SWAT forces.

SWAT agents undergoing project rescue training and helicopter dev-ops adoption training.

SWAT units are often equipped with specialized tools including Knockout, SQL, MongoDB, node.js debuggers, Jenkins, Docker containers, PySpark, and occasionally stun grenades for wowing clients in the superior use of software and data skills.

History

1960s

According to the Historical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, the term "SWAT" was used as an acronym for the "Special Weapons Attack Team", and later the "Special Weapons and Tactics" team established as a 100-man specialized unit in 1964 by the Philadelphia Police Department in response to an alarming increase in bank robberies but the term later fell in disuse until 2016.

2010s

Since May 2016, following a successful team offsite in Atlanta, the OW Labs Data Engineering and Software Engineering teams were merged into a single special forces unit under the name "SWAT," effectively claiming the term from the lesser known specialized police units in the United States.

Controversies

Despite widespread speculation in major media outlets, the identity of SWAT operatives remains a well-kept secret and its founding members are known only by their code names: Greenish, Vo, Lindblom, Fillis, Yoneda, Gardner, Meurer, and Fisher.

It has been reported that lengthy debates were held amongst the founding members of SWAT about what the acronym should mean, including unorthodox yet relevant interpretations such as "SoftWare And DaTa", with some agents suggesting the adoption of a different name altogether.

External links

Oliver Wyman Labs Official website for Oliver Wyman Labs

User:Andremeurer/sandbox

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