Course Description
Agile in a Government Environment
Agile in the Government Environment
Learn how to successfully apply an Agile approach in the Government Environment
The Federal Government has mandated that software procurement and development efforts must drastically increase their effectiveness and efficiency. To achieve this mandate, many governmental agencies and contractors are beginning to apply an Agile approach to the development and delivery of their software and services. In order to effectively apply Agile in the government space, you must understand specifically how to navigate the challenges of process requirements found in government. This class builds the bridge between what Agile is and how it can be used effectively in a government environment. This is your foundational Government Agile course.
Learn how to:
- Understand the clear government mandate for an improved approach for software and services procurement and delivery
- Understand the various Agile principles, methods, and frameworks being used in government today
- Appreciate the history of Agile and how the collection of principles and practices came together to enable customer success
- Draw best practices from the various methodologies that will contribute to your team's success
- Build the discipline to support Agile principles and practices within your team and organization
- Talk the talk: learning the Agile terminology, roles and forums and how they are used within federal agencies
- Break the language barrier. Learn how to easily map Agile language to the federal language
- Walk through the processes that support Agile principles to enable the delivery of great products and services
- Combine an Earned Value Management (EVM) approach with an Agile approach for maximum effectiveness
- Begin to map the transition of your existing or enterprise-level processes, artifacts and forums to Agile
- Discover the power of Agile teams through communication, collaboration and cadence
- Uncover the pitfalls that Government teams and contractors will encounter in an Agile transition and understand how to overcome those challenges
- Learn key concepts and principles that will help you scale Agile teams across geographic and organizational divides and how to collaborate with other contractors and vendors on the same initiative
- Learn the basics around how structure contracts and agreements in the Government space that support your team’s Agile delivery and release plans
Immediate Benefits of Attending This Course:
- Gain a solid understanding of Agile principles, why they are important, and how they map to the federal mandates (the DoD 804 report) as well as the “25 Points for Federal IT Reform”
- Understand the Agile approach and its benefits for government gencies and programs
- How to control your project to ensure that you are not behind schedule through effect project execution and release planning
- Clearly understand how to identify and state “Value” as well as define and recognize when it is “Earned” to satisfy EVM project/process requirements while applying an Agile approach
- How to communicate project progress and status for government programs
- Incorporate retrospectives into your team processes to promote continuous improvement
- Learn how to allow requirements to emerge during development without adversely affecting your delivery proficiency
- Understand the difference between defined capabilities and detailed requirements and when to document each of them
- Deliver working software frequently, even on large government projects
- Gain the ability to adapt to your customer’s changing needs
- Measure progress in meaningful ways
- Control schedule and cost by using Agile time-boxing techniques that work within defined federal guidelines for delivery
- Discover what Toyota spent hundreds of millions of dollars to learn and how it can transform your agency’s efficiency
- Implement incremental planning and adaptation on your projects to eliminate waste in your processes
- Identify and apply strategies to build empowered, collaborative teams
- Learn to use velocity-driven planning to ensure project success in federal fixed-date or fixed-cost environments
- Identify common Agile pitfalls and learn how to avoid them
- Learn how to integrate continuous testing within your software development practices to improve project quality
- Understand the five levels of Agile planning that will guide your teams to Success at every stage of development
- Establish a firm understanding of what it takes to make a transition to Agile in the government environment
In this powerful two-day course, you'll grasp the concepts, principles, and structure of Agile development and how these are being applied in the unique government environment.
Agile success demands a strong and stable foundation.
To incorporate an Agile methodology or practice into your government program with an expectation of shredding the rigid discipline of your current method is a sure path to failure. The common misconception is that Agility means lack of order or discipline, which is not the case. Agility in software requires strong discipline. You must have a solid foundation in the practices and procedures you wish to adapt In order to successfully implement Agile in the government environment. And, you must learn how to follow those practices correctly while tying them to pre-defined, rigid quality goals.
This workshop will give you the foundation of knowledge and experience you need in order to be successful on your next government project.
Define the principles and highlight the advantages, and disadvantages of Agile development and how these map to federal guidelines for IT procurement, development, and delivery. Get first-hand experience by organizing and participating in an Agile team. Put the concepts you learn to practice instantly in the classroom project. Understand and learn how to take advantage of the opportunities for Agile, while applying them within current government project process requirements. Finally, get a clear understanding of the collaboration and communication needed between customer and developers for Agile to succeed.
Agile processes forming the basis for this course include:
Scrum
Extreme Programming
Feature Driven Development
Lean Development
Practical, Immediately Useful Information:
This information packed course will expose you to an array of ideas, techniques and tools that you can incorporate immediately — enabling you to successfully integrate Agile development techniques into your federal program.
You will immediately understand how to:
- Consistently deliver better products that will enable your customer’s success
- Reduce the risk of project failure, missed deadlines, scope overrun, or exceeded budgets
- Establish, develop, empower, nurture and protect high-performing teams
- Identify and eliminate waste from your processes
- Map government project language to Agile language simply and effectively
- Learn how to foster collaboration, even with teams that are distributed geographically and organizationally
- Clearly understand how EVM and Agile can be integrated
- Understand the basic structure of Agile processes that will breed Success in the federal environment
- Embrace ever-changing requirements for your customer’s competitive advantage
In-Class Workshops and Group Exercises:
Get real-world hands-on experience in our classroom. Ensure you get the most benefit out of your decision to move to Agile practices by taking the time to learn those practices right.
This course is a stimulating combination of class interaction, group exercises, and the classroom Federal Agile case study project. Each is designed to help you easily grasp new concepts and techniques while learn how to apply them in the government sector.
Specifically you will cover:
- Self-organized teams, even in a highly matrixed agency or organization
- Simulate a project introduction, create a vision and set of light requirements
- How to plan your product’s release within the mandated 6 month timeframe
- How to communicate project status utilizing both Agile and EVM indicators for progress
- How to satisfy the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requirements (Circular A-11) while applying an Agile execution approach
- Understanding customers and how to collaborate with them to create User Stories
- Relative estimating – focus on becoming more accurate rather than precise
- Defining the distinction between capabilities and requirements and when to document each
- Identify Agile best practices as they relate to challenges within the federal environment
Substitution & Cancellation Policy:
You may cancel or reschedule up to 21 days prior to the start date of the class at no penalty. For any cancellation or reschedule requests within 21 days, the full course tuition is still due and not eligible for refund. Any paid tuition will be credited towards a future class and must be used within 12 months.
*Partner delivered courses may be subject to different cancellation terms