You Know You Are Agile If…

Did you know that almost 50% of IT projects fail. It’s true. So in order to help cut down on the time and money federal agencies spend on IT projects they’re moving to agile development.

Brent Bushey is the Project Manager for DHS’s ICE. He and his team have used agile development to create Alien Criminal Response Information Management System (ACRIMe).

He told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program how it works.

What is Agile?

“Agile formalizes the natural human reaction to get things done,” said Bushey.

1. Develop a strong and cohesive mission
2. Identify the highest priority items and tackle those first
3. Work with the end users and the development team to accomplish the tasks
4. Create a rigorous methodology and terminology
5. Set a defined time period

“The real goal is to break up the work into small manageable functions that have the end users involved throughout the process. At the end of every small project there should be manageable code,” said Bushey.

Face to Face Mentality

“We believe face to face is the most effective way to quickly produce projects. We have quick team meetings every morning. In order to be agile you have to get away from the long-drawn out meetings,” said Bushey.

You Know Your Agile If…

• End user is involved in a daily process
• Producing usable workable products and deploying them at most at 6 month increments.

Fail

“You can’t be afraid to fail. The key is to fail fast and fail small. The smaller the risk and iteration the easier it is to course correct mid-project,” said Bushey.

What Does ACRIMe do?

“The mission is to provide quick responses to state and local law enforcement officers who have a subject in custody for a criminal offense and have a question of their immigration status,” said Bushey.

Brent was also a speaker at GovLoop’s Next Generation of Government Training Summit. If you are looking for more NextGen style training and can’t wait for the July conference you should check out NextGen+. The shortened half-day conference kicks off on December 6th.