Best Practices

News and Events on Best Practices

28 posts

Why the American People Deserve a Digital Government

OMB released new policy guidance for government that includes a variety of actions and standards to help federal agencies design, develop, and deliver modern websites and digital services. Memo M-23-22, Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience, will make it seamless for the public to obtain government information and services online, and help agencies fully implement the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (21st Century IDEA). — via The White House

Sep 22, 2023

Seven tips on facilitating unplanned topics in meetings

Facilitating a workshop can feel like a daunting task. Here at 18F, we’ve identified seven tips to keep your workshop organized and flowing, despite unplanned scenarios. — via 18F

Aug 22, 2023

Am I doing it right? A checkup for agile teams

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. — via 18F

Mar 23, 2023

C-SCRM Acquisition Community of Practice (ACoP) Interact Site

C-SCRM Acquisition Community of Practice (ACoP) Interact Site—Since the launch of the Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) Acquisition Community of Practice (ACoP), GSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have been co-leading an effort to broaden the level of awareness and develop agency maturity in the areas of acquisitions, supply chain risk management, and cybersecurity across the federal government for information communication technology and services (ICTS). To increase C-SCRM awareness and adoption government-wide, the C-SCRM ACoP launched an online collaborative space for the federal government’s IT community and industry to share best practices, ideas, guidance, tools, and expertise needed to implement C-SCRM requirements. Working together as a community and sharing information will help us improve our cybersecurity posture across all levels of government. — via General Services Administration

Jun 30, 2022

Announcing Data Governance Charter Templates

Announcing Data Governance Charter Templates—As a part of our Resources and Advisory Support collection, the Data and Analytics (DA) team in the Centers of Excellence (CoE) has released three charter templates that can help federal agencies set up data governance groups and an Office of the Chief Data Officer. We developed these charter templates based on our experiences working with chief data officers (CDOs) and data practitioners across the federal government. These charters are designed to help federal government agencies set up data governance bodies to better use agency data securely and strategically. Although the charter templates don’t represent or constitute official guidance, they’ll help jump start your effort to build data governance structures within your agency. Tailor them to meet your agency’s specific needs. — via The Centers of Excellence

Jun 08, 2022

Finding Post-award Balance With Quality Assurance

Finding Post-award Balance With Quality Assurance—If you’re one of the many federal employees carrying out your mission through contracting, you might have an important question: how do I know if my contractor is doing a good job? Even if you don’t have a strong technical background, there are steps you can take to build your confidence in the project’s maintainability and sustainability. — via 18F

May 02, 2022

Learn How to Create an Accessible Meeting

Learn How to Create an Accessible Meeting—The GSA Government-wide IT Accessibility Program publishes guidance on how you can plan your next meeting—from selecting your venue or online platform, planning for and scheduling accommodations, ensuring the accessibility of meeting documents and materials, meeting management techniques, and more. — via Section508.gov

Nov 02, 2021

The Weekly Ship: What It Is, Why Useful, and How To Create Your Own

The Weekly Ship: What It Is, Why It’s Useful, and How To Create Your Own—The weekly ship has been a staple of 18F projects for years. It is a way to engage partners, inform teammates, and reflect on our work. — via 18F

Oct 21, 2021

Navigating ATOs

Navigating ATOs—Authority to Operate (ATO) processes work differently at different federal agencies. As a technology and design consultancy inside the United States government, 18F has worked on ATOs at many of them. We are still learning and experimenting, but there are definite patterns we have seen work well across multiple agencies. — via 18F

Oct 19, 2021

Robotic Process Automation

5 Tips for Implementing Citizen Development in Your RPA Program

The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Community of Practice highlights five key points for implementing RPA citizen developers, as shared by federal subject matter experts James Gregory (General Services Administration), Frank Wood (Defense Logistics Agency), and Russ Kuehn (Social Security Administration) during their recent webinars with the Federal RPA Community of Practice.

Posts by James Gregory

Aug 16, 2021

USPS

Customer Experience & Continuous Improvement: The USPS Digital Approach

This presentation lays out USPS.com’s continuous improvement approach and how it combines analytics and customer feedback with iterative heuristic reviews, design, and usability testing to monitor, improve, and evolve the USPS.com CX.

Watch Video

Hosted by Digital.gov and the United States Postal Service

Posts by Jeff Pass Posts by Alexander Turgeon Posts by Matt Petrowski

Nov 12, 2020 2020

Acquisition

Discovery BPA Evaluation Process: How to Operationalize this Practice

This guide provides acquisition professionals the steps and resources needed to operationalize the evaluation process developed for the Discovery BPA.

Posts by Bridget Fields Posts by Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi Posts by Michelle McNellis Posts by Ashley Owens Posts by Rebecca Refoy

Oct 26, 2020

A Federal Guide to De-risk Government Technology Projects

A Federal Guide to De-risk Government Technology Projects—Written for cross-functional teams delivering IT services to their users, the Federal Field Guide to De-risk Government Technology offers guidance to federal agencies on how to structure software development teams, write contracts, and oversee agile software activities to reduce risks and improve outcomes for end-users. — via 18F

Sep 09, 2020

Acquisition

Experimenting with the Micro-Purchase Threshold

Through the use of an open-source procurement process, we created an experiment others can replicate to encourage Agile thinking.

Posts by Alan Atlas Posts by Bridget Fields Posts by Mark Hopson Posts by Michelle McNellis Posts by Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi

Apr 24, 2020

Have You Critiqued Your Critique Process?

DEMO Whenever I hear someone complain about the process of a design critique, I’m always a bit surprised. Blame it on the fact

Posts by Meghan Lazier

Jul 31, 2017

‘Cybersecuring’ the Internet of Things

I recently had the chance to talk with the legendary Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the past, present and future of the internet, network security and what it would take to successfully, safely and reliably merge the digital and physical worlds, a concept known

Posts by Donna Dodson

Jun 29, 2017

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

Posts by Brian Fox

Jun 15, 2017

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