Feds turn to agile development as budget cuts loom

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies, including the Defense Department, are facing unprecedented budget problems that are creating a new reality for government IT. IT managers are turning to agile development to speed up projects and to quickly show their value. The days of the big, lumbering, multi-year government IT project may be slowly ending.

Government agencies, which spend about $80 billion a year on IT, are preparing for a possible shutdown as early as next month, as well as spending cuts from 8% to 10% if Congress doesn't end the default and sequestration threats. On top of this, agencies continue to operate on short-term budgets because lawmakers have yet to approve the yearly budget...Agile methodology emphasizes collaboration with developers, managers and customers -- anyone with a stake in a project outcome -- as well as iterative development cycles that produce deliverables in short increments.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was a relatively early adopter of agile development. The VA's CIO, Roger Baker, said, "we are huge fans of agile, and are using it in our most critical programs." Baker, in an email, said that the agile development process has been successful because of customer involvement. "Most critically, we get the customer deeply involved in the program, defining what the system must do, how it should do it, what the workflow must be, and how the UI (user interface) should look," Baker said...