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Am I doing it right? A check up for agile teams
on March 23, 2023
Even on the best teams, things need to be monitored and adjusted. If you are doing this for the first time, it can be even harder. In this article, I share some signals of what success looks like and what to do if you are stuck in one of the many common pitfalls.
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Senior executives part 5: Use stories as leading indicators
on August 25, 2022
Executives often rely on productivity metrics to measure success, but these measures can obscure whether the software is actually working for users. Stories are a better resource to build a strategy between a senior executive and a product team. This is part five in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 4: Initiate more direct interaction to build rapport
on August 18, 2022
It’s critical that senior executives and product teams make small decisions over time about important technology initiatives to be able to adjust plans as things change. How does that work? What works well? This is part four in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 3: Use short-term initiatives to build confidence in long-term decisions
on August 11, 2022
Deadlines often force executives to make long-term decisions about technology without certainty it’ll be successful. Modern software development strategies help reduce this risk by leveraging a product team to incrementally test software upfront. This is part three in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 2: Work outside the traditional hierarchy to set up an initiative for success
on August 2, 2022
In order to ultimately succeed at delivering human-centered software, two critical groups need to work closely together: the product team and a champions group. This is part two in a series on how senior executives and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives are the allies tech teams need, part 1
on July 20, 2022
Successfully delivering software in government requires people to work differently. Without clear answers for how to do this, well-intentioned executives and teams default to existing processes that risk undermining their own success. This is part one in a series on how to evolve that relationship.
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Building capacities within a government agency to build and support a new case management system: part 2
on June 17, 2021
This is part two in a two-part series with our partner team at the U.S. Tax Court about their experiences building their new, open source case management system, DAWSON. For this post, we talked to Mike Marcotte, Technical Lead on the project.
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Building a user-centered data strategy
on April 1, 2021
18F can help agencies with the process of developing an effective data strategy. Our principles of user-centered design, agile, and iterative delivery can increase your agencies’ chance for success in using data more effectively.
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Using agile and DevOps to get better results than a change control board
on March 2, 2021
Agile is a way of quickly reacting to the demands of your project and DevOps is a methodology for building infrastructure and applications that is able to adapt and change quickly. Using these methods, you can avoid many of the pitfalls of traditional waterfall practices described above.
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An Agile Software Development Solicitation Guide
on August 20, 2019
This is part 2 in a series about how to contract for agile software development services. In this post we'll show you how to create a complete solicitation in hours, not months, using our agile contract format
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The value of cross-functional teams
on June 18, 2019
A core concept of agile is that teams are cross-functional: the team collectively possesses all of the skills necessary to get the job done. We embrace that at 18F, and take it a little farther, and not just on agile teams.
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You might not be as agile as you think you are
on May 29, 2019
The mandate to be agile is everywhere. But agile isn’t an on-off switch. It’s a skill and a mindset that is developed over time, through dedicated work, open teams, and lots (and lots) of practice
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Am I doing this right?: Antipatterns in agile contracting
on September 27, 2018
As agencies try to adopt agile development practices and modular contracting methods, there are several anti-patterns that we have noticed through the course of our work. We address how these can hinder success and alternatives to consider.
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Using agile methods to improve the RFP process
on May 22, 2018
The process of developing and issuing RFPs is often viewed as a one off - a special activity that occurs infrequently and in isolation. What if we applied the principles of iteration and continuous improvement to the way that RFPs are developed?
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Win big by going small
on March 13, 2018
Adopting this “smaller is better” mindset as a way to overhaul a large, complex legacy system can feel counterintuitive. But the notion of smallness — of distilling complex, interdependent tasks into achievable units of work — is fundamental to building modern software in both the private and public sector.
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Getting DevOps buy-in to facilitate agile
on January 25, 2018
Agile without DevOps is a bundle of potential energy with no outlet. We’ve found that it’s easier to get agency buy-in for DevOps if automated security audits are part of that work.
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Getting stakeholder buy in for agile development
on December 14, 2017
Transitioning to agile development doesn’t need to be a big, sweeping, organizational change. Here are some tips to make it more approachable and less scary by introducing it in small chunks.
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Improving government outcomes through an agile contract format
on November 30, 2017
The way government is writing contracts is wasting time, handcuffing industry, and preventing programs from meeting mission mandates. There’s a better way through an Agile Contract Format.
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Pulling back the curtain on IT procurement
on October 11, 2017
Monolithic procurement — large, complex, multi-year contracts, which are common in government IT procurement — can appear compelling to agencies that use them. The Technology Transformation Services (TTS) is a strong advocate for an alternative approach known as modular contracting (aka modular procurement).
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Managing custom software development in government when you're not a software engineer
on September 20, 2017
As custom software development becomes integral to accomplishing any program’s mission, many managers in government find themselves faced with handling the unfamiliar: overseeing the design and implementation of a digital product that is functional and user-friendly.
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A day in the life of an 18F product owner
on September 18, 2017
The Technology Transformation Services (TTS) has been working with the Forest Service in an effort to move their permitting process online. We’ve previously written about how doing this work in the open can benefit other agencies with permit systems. In this post, we’ll focus on why it’s important to have a product owner, what that looks like from the Forest Service’s perspective, and why a product owner is critical to successful projects.
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The best way to build big is to start small
on January 11, 2017
Large software systems are hard, and in government we're tasked with building large systems to manage complex benefits and processes. Often those mandates arrive on the back of a failing legacy system. An agile workflow has the benefit of allowing us to try out our ideas before committing to years of time and money.
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Modular procurement resources for state and local government
on November 15, 2016
Our recent work with state government agencies in California and Mississippi provides some powerful examples of how 18F’s commitment to working and learning in the open can provide enormous benefits — even to states that are not yet working directly with 18F.
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Three small steps you can take to reboot agile in your organization
on October 25, 2016
This past summer, 18F held an agile workshop for the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. An agency with roots going back to World War II, NTIS is facing a future that requires a strategic realignment towards open data and services.
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Announcing the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Playbook
on October 12, 2016
Built on the lessons learned during the pilot phase of the Digital Acquisitions Accelerator, the accompanying playbook examines the current acquisition landscape and provides an approach to procuring custom software solutions. Our goal is to make the government a smarter and more informed buyer of digital products and services.
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Get the most juice out of the squeeze
on October 11, 2016
Through analytics and moderated sessions, we can learn what user goals are and enhance the platform to help them achieve those goals. By creating universal search across legal resources, people will be able to locate information more efficiently. This tool will allow them to better understand and comply with campaign finance laws, thus helping advance the FEC's mission.
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Mississippi brings agile and modular techniques to child welfare system contract
on September 20, 2016
The State of Mississippi is about to upgrade its child welfare management system, a system used by about 1,800 state employees in 82 counties, supporting the wellbeing of about 5,000 children across the state. The system was built in the early 2000s, and the employees who use it are stymied by an inefficient interface and aging infrastructure.
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Kanban for government
on August 31, 2016
Some months ago, 18F started playing with kanban as a way to manage and improve our processes. For the 18F Agreements team, adopting kanban has caused a dramatic positive change in how they manage their work.
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What happens when the whole team joins user interviews
on August 16, 2016
The CALC team is an agile team of four — six if you count the Scrummaster and the Product Owner — building a simple means to load price data into the original CALC tool. They’re an Agile team, which means everybody pitches in on everything to some degree, and here, in their own words, is some reflection on what happened when they all scrubbed in on the discovery phase.
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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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Prototype early, prototype often: A lesson from the DATA Act
on June 14, 2016
The DATA Act is a “tremendous undertaking …[to] standardize how federal agencies report their spending data.” It has the potential to provide unprecedented insight into how the federal government spends money, and it comes with a statutory deadline. Any delay in implementation is a delay in cost savings and transparency, so we’re trying to help the government deliver on the promise of the DATA Act in a timely manner.
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Taking an agile approach to content
on May 31, 2016
At 18F, we work in an agile way — in other words, we base our designs on user needs, conduct usability testing, iterate quickly, and release MVPs (minimum viable products) rather than highly finalized releases. We take an agile approach to content too.
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The teams, they are a changin’
on April 18, 2016
To truly harness the power of agile practices, you need a stable team. But people leave under normal circumstances for a variety of reasons. While recognizing the need for stable teams, there are things our team does and should do to be resilient in the face of change.
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Treasury and the DATA Act: Full of sunshine
on March 15, 2016
To celebrate Sunshine Week, we’re highlighting some groundbreaking open government work by the Department of the Treasury, one of 18F’s partner agencies.
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Software maintenance is an anti-pattern
on February 23, 2016
Governments often use two anti-patterns when sustaining software: equating the first release with complete and how they manage the reduction of staff when a reduction in budget is appropriate. To address the latter anti-pattern, managers need to rethink how they approach spending their operations and maintenance budget.
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How user story estimation helps my team deliver value
on January 25, 2016
At 18F, we believe that employing agile practices is the most effective way to build digital services. User story estimation is one of the most useful agile tools, and in this post, I’ll talk about how and why my team has been using it.
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Is your project using “agilefall”?
on December 29, 2015
At 18F, we’ve spent a lot of time working with federal agencies and coaching them through the transition to agile, but on first blush it’s not always easy to tell who’s really adopted agile versus those who just say they’re agile because they know they’re supposed to.
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How we use a lean approach to product design
on November 20, 2015
Here at 18F, several product teams (including CALC, Discovery, and EITI) have been experimenting with a lean product design approach to building software, often called “lean UX.” In a nutshell, it is a set of ideas about design and project management that help us focus not just on what we build, but on the outcomes our tools enable.
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How a two-day sprint moved an agency twenty years forward
on September 9, 2015
At 18F Consulting, we experiment with ways to empower agencies to build cost-efficient, excellent digital solutions. Recently we partnered with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to run a two day “Design/Dev Agile Sprint” to help them modernize their Field Operations Handbook.
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How 90 minutes with Lego bricks taught these executives agile
on August 31, 2015
The Small Business Administration was ready to try something different. So they asked 18F Consulting to run an “introduction to agile” workshop for their executives. With the help of a bucket of Legos, the executives were able to learn the basics of agile development practices in only an afternoon.
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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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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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ACT-IAC event on DevOps in the government
on April 20, 2015
Themed 'Achieve Agile Nirvana Through DevOps,' the education and training event will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on Friday, May 1 at the General Services Administration, 1800 F Street NW, in Washington, D.C.
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New RFP ghostwriting service to improve contract success
on March 30, 2015
A poorly written RFP will expose you to such risks as overbidding to compensate for uncertainty, vendor lock-in, and catastrophic failure due to miscommunication and misunderstanding. You don’t want that. The taxpaying public doesn’t want that. And neither does 18F.
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How to protosketch
on March 13, 2015
If you are a leading a project, ask for a protosketch. If you are a developer, learn to protosketch. Create imagination-sparking moments, in the meeting.
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Labor category descriptions for agile procurements
on March 10, 2015
Clients of 18F Consulting frequently ask for help defining labor categories for agile contracts. We’ve published these definitions in a public GitHub repo so other acquisition professionals can benefit from them, too. Read on for more details.
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Highlights from the Agile Delivery Services Industry Day events
on February 12, 2015
18F and GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS) held a pair of events for our upcoming Agile Delivery Services blanket purchase agreement (BPA). Over 700 people registered for the events, showing just how much interest there is from the private sector in this new BPA.
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A story of an agile workshop
on February 11, 2015
The clock was ticking as I stated the single solitary rule: We will have a demo at 10:00, 11:00 and 12:00 no matter what else happens. No matter if we have to stand up and say we got nothing done this sprint!
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Creating a federal marketplace for agile delivery services
on January 8, 2015
The federal government and industry community have been talking about the need for software acquisitions to keep pace with technology cycles — typically 1-3 years. In today’s dynamic environment, however, not even that is fast enough.
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Sketching with code: protosketching
on January 6, 2015
Meetings are boring. Prototypes are cool. Use the meeting to build the prototype. We call building a prototype in three hours or less "protosketching."
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Going to .Gov college
on December 15, 2014
Last week, a number of teammates coordinated to put on three DigitalGov University courses that covered a range of topics, from culture change and open source to the latest in API trends.
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How to run your own three-sprint agile workshop
on October 21, 2014
You can’t learn agile software development from a book any more than you can learn to perform a one-handed jump shot without repeatedly tossing a basketball in the hoop. You can read a book about the basic idea, you can read a book to get started, and you can read a book about refining your technique, but in the end you have to practice.
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