Agile
News and Events on Agile
47 posts
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 — via 18F
Experiments in Tweaking Agile for UX
Designers at the Federal Reserve Board share how they adjusted the agile process to work better for their team.
How One Team is Making the Transition to Agile
A hybrid approach of waterfall and agile practices is helping the USGS make the transition to agile.
Thinking About Going Agile? 5 Benefits Your Office Will Reap With Agile Methods
Five benefits of using agile methodologies that can help federal employees improve the quality of their work.
Thinking About Going Agile? Consider Mass Training to Facilitate the Change
How organizational instruction can help transform the processes and culture of your office.
Managing Custom Software Development in Government When You’re Not a Software Engineer
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, user-friendly, and necessary for realizing your program’s mission.
Four Challenges of Adopting Team Structures (And How Leaders Can Mitigate Them)
If you’re considering “going agile,” one of the critical components of such a transformation will be adopting team structures. In your current, pre-teaming state, your developers are probably working by themselves, and may be engaging directly with stakeholders. Agile will place your developers into teams. Teaming is important, as it will enable your development staff
The Data Briefing: Design-Driven Enterprise Architecture Creating the New Federal Government Agency
It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on enterprise architecture (EA). My last in-depth work with EA was around 2011 when I was on detail to the Office of Personnel Management’s Open Government Team. The EA model I worked with was the top-down organizational design of information technology assets, data assets, and business processes.
Becoming an Agile Content Team
In March, the team of writers and editors at USAGov adopted some agile principles in an attempt to streamline our content development process. We hoped operating in a more agile manner would help us address some of the challenges we were facing as a team:
Buzzwords for 2017
Along with the New Year comes new buzzwords. Here are some that you are certain to hear about and see this year. Chatbot Short for ”chat robot,” a chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation, or chat, through artificial intelligence. They are commonly found on web sites and used to communicate with a person—you might have seen them
The Life-Changing Magic of Writing Release Notes
A key part of agile development is constantly shipping new features. The team behind the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) beta website ships new features at least once every two weeks. Sometimes the features are big, noticeable changes, such as the new home page we recently launched. And other times they’re small (a copy edit, an
Three Small Steps You Can Take to Reboot Agile in Your Organization
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. This strategic alignment will also require that NTIS
