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To get things done, you need great, secure tools
on February 27, 2017
To folks new to government, one of the most surprising differences between our work and work in the private sector are the barriers in accessing commercially available software, and commercially available Software as a Service (SaaS) in particular. There are many good reasons for these barriers but digital teams need great tools to get work done and compliance requires tradeoffs associated with time to initial delivery and accommodation of constraints that are different from the private sector.
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Embracing opportunities to improve and innovate
on October 24, 2016
Today the GSA Inspector General (IG) issued a report that identified areas for improvement, and we are thankful for their oversight. We have made many improvements over the last few months to address the issues outlined in this report and will take all additional actions necessary.
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When a micro-purchase doesn’t work out, we try to learn from it
on July 7, 2016
Two months ago, the 18F acquisitions team ran a public micro-purchase auction to find a vendor to develop a small new feature for 18F's cloud.gov, and for the first time after several successful micro-purchases for other products, the contracted vendor didn’t deliver the code on time. This was very interesting to us we’re early in the life of the micro-purchase platform, and we believe that failure is a great way to learn. In the spirit of experimentation and sharing our lessons, here’s how we went about analyzing this, and here’s what we learned.
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From 1,500 pages to 10: Helping California buy a new Child Welfare System
on March 22, 2016
Through a partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, 18F was able to work with California’s Department of Social Services and Office of Systems Integration on the replacement of California's Child Welfare System. We helped them simplify the contracting documents and incorporate modular contracting, agile development, user-centered design, and open source practices into their project.
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Micro-purchase auctions round 2: What we learned
on January 15, 2016
The auctions have closed, the bids are in, the winners are off coding, and some already have been paid. Let’s look at some early lessons from our latest round of micro-purchase auctions.
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Announcing the 18F Micro-purchase Platform
on January 7, 2016
In October 2015, 18F launched an experiment in micro-purchasing. Given both vendor and government interest in continuing this task, 18F is happy to announce the launch of a new platform for posting and bidding on micro-purchase tasks.
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The Agile BPA is ready to launch
on December 17, 2015
Today, we're pleased to officially say that Pool Three of the Agile BPA is ready to launch. Although we announced the awardees earlier this year, there were multiple protests related to the Agile BPA. Last night, we learned that the final protest has been resolved.
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The current future of 18F marketplaces
on November 18, 2015
In August, we announced the Full-stack Development Pool vendors for the Agile Delivery Services Marketplace. As we continue to work on the alpha version of this marketplace, we're beginning to plan out additional micro-markets as well.
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Early lessons from the micro-purchase experiment
on November 6, 2015
Well, we sure didn’t expect this. But the winning bid for the first iteration of the 18F micro-purchase experiment was $1. And on Wednesday, the winner delivered a solution that passed our acceptance criteria.
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Announcing the criteria for 18F's first micro-purchase contract
on October 26, 2015
Today, we're beginning our micro-purchase experiment. Here are the details of what we are looking for and our acceptance criteria for the final submission.
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Open Source Micro-purchasing: An experiment in federal acquisition
on October 13, 2015
In the next few weeks, we're going to use our micro-purchase authority to run an experiment to contract for open source contributions to our active projects.
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Announcing the Agile BPA awards: A conversation about the process
on August 28, 2015
As the first Agile BPA awards are now being issued, we asked three members of the team about the process and the lessons they’ve learned so far.
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Avoiding cloudfall: A systematic approach to cloud migration
on June 22, 2015
18F has been working on reducing the costs of entry to the cloud and thinking about good practices for cloud migration. One good practice is to adopt a scaled approach to cloud migration to avoid cloudfall.
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The Agile Delivery BPA is here!
on June 15, 2015
The Request for Quotation (RFQ) for the Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement (Agile Delivery BPA) is hitting the street on Wednesday, June 17, 2015.
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Agile development’s secret weapon: transparency
on April 24, 2015
18F Consulting recommends agile development for several reasons, including agile’s emphasis on user needs, continuous integration, and rapid adaptation to changed circumstances. But there is another important reason we recommend agile: its focus on transparency.
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Coming soon: the agile delivery services solicitation
on April 23, 2015
Calling all agile vendors...get ready! By the end of this month, GSA will be releasing a Request for Quote (RFQ) for the alpha version of the Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement
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