Numerous federal agencies are moving to Agile software development methods for some or all in their IT systems development projects. In an era of tightening federal budgets and increased demand on technology to assist meet mission requirements, agencies are seeking how you can deliver critical mission functionality more quickly and with less risk. For various agencies, Agile has become the solution.

On its face, the case for Agile is easy: Break the software development process right into a series of short “sprints,” each of which delivers on a small part of the necessities of a system. This modular approach enables (and encourages) frequent delivery of latest functionality to finish users, and facilitates (even demands) user participation and feedback during system creation. Compared, the “Waterfall” development approach used traditionally within government requires users so as to fully describe what they need in a system up front and to attend years until the system is completed.

Agencies typically adopt Agile to bypass large-scale failures in systems development programs. The dep. of Veterans Affairs (VA), an early adopter of Agile inside the federal government, moved to Agile in 2009 for a critical new system (the recent GI Bill) when the dept was failing on much of the remainder of its development portfolio. For this reason, VA successfully delivered its first new large-scale system in years, and decided to adopt Agile for the advance of a lot of other critical systems.

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Agencies also are moving to Agile to raised make sure that the system being developed actually meets the wishes of the mission. Programs using Agile development provide customers with early production versions of the product to take advantage of and critique, ensuring customer involvement and purchase-in. More importantly, because change happens, Agile’s frequent releases provide the power to rapidly reply to changing mission priorities, customer preferences, or maybe requirements imposed by new laws.

Critical to today’s federal environment, Agile also cuts system development costs. Frankly, this may be the toughest to justify. The initial estimates for the price to develop a system using either Waterfall or Agile usually are an identical. Logically, if both processes work in addition in practice as they do in theory, either process should bring about the similar system for a lot the identical price. As a matter of fact, metrics show that incremental programs (including Agile) successfully meet their delivery commitments at a rate nearly 3 times that of Waterfall. In my experience, this equated to on-time delivery jumping from under 30% to over 80% for a $1 billion systems development portfolio.

Using Agile for systems development frequently has an instantaneous positive impact on mission results. By delivering after which improving production versions of a system early inside the development cycle, Agile programs allow the agency to start realizing some great benefits of the recent system to their missions much earlier. And with system users intimately and continually focused on its design and development, the top solution better addresses their real-world requirements, permitting them to work more productively.

Finally, using Agile may help improve the location of the CIO and the IT organization inside the agency. With daily active engagement between users and IT, and frequent on-time delivery of latest, mission-prioritized system functionality, customers begin to see IT as a whole, essential and productive partner in accomplishing the agency’s mission. And that has substantial implications throughout the budget process, during resource discussions, and at the agency’s willingness to offer more authorities to the CIO.

In any case, it’s an investment in improved mission effectiveness. In the event that they see that investment returning frequent, reliable, positive results, they’ll look in finding more methods to invest.

Roger Baker is chief strategy officer for Agilex, a number one provider of mission and technology solutions to the government. He was previously CIO for the dept of Veterans Affairs from 2009-13 and served as CIO for the dept of Commerce from 1998-2001.

Find out what government IT teams want to know to deliver new, more agile enterprise networks and services. Also inside the new, all-digital Next-Gen Networks issue of InformationWeek Government: How the Navy cut the value tag for its newly awarded Next Generation Enterprise Network contract to HP by greater than one thousand million dollars. (Free registration required.)