Uncle Sam Isn’t Agile

  Agile   ProjectsAtWork  

Federal agencies are turning to Agile methods to lower costs, increase efficiencies and improve IT success rates, but entrenched cultural and operational realities are holding back meaningful change. Here’s a critical analysis of why Agile is stalling in the federal sector and what needs to be done to jump-start it.

Agile development techniques continue to be touted as a potential solution for federal government software budget woes. However, the General Accountability Office (GAO), a watchdog agency, in Effective Practices and Federal Challenges in Applying Agile Methods, highlights a number of challenges to adopting agile development methodologies inside federal agencies — as do a number of other federal IT publications.

When I first came to the DC area in the early nineties to work for a federal government contractor, I learned that what should take minutes, takes hours, what should take hours, takes days, what should take days takes weeks, and so on. After returning to federal government contracting after working in the commercial sector, I found no change in this culture. Now with the Sequester and current federal budget climate, agile development is gaining renewed attention as a potential method for lowering IT development costs. However, culture and the “how it’s always been done” chorus is why Uncle Sam isn’t agile on the …

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