Achieving Real Results Through Agile Development

by Stephanie Sullivan, Consultant

The AFCEA Bethesda event held on September 26 really highlighted how much of a driver agile development is going to be in FY13. Higher program priorities are going to be built through a modular approach, which means big investments will be broken down into components, and a new level of value must be added in each step. If you use a financial system as an example, an agency would build out the core components, and then build value added capabilities on top of that.

This continues to fit the theme of do more with less in FY13. Agile development will provide a way to achieve results while working with a specific goal in mind, and being able to prioritize  backlog. Failure is not an option for agencies because it’s becoming more and more difficult to justify receiving funding for system build outs, and if things are not developed and executed on time, money will be reallocated to other projects, and funding requests get moved to the back of the line.

A key takeaway message from the breakfast event was that the government would like for industry to pre-empt and execute on government needs (widgets were used as an example of this).  The goal is for industry to come up with products/solutions that take less than 3 months to build, anything longer could result in the government losing interest.