General Accountability Office

(GAO)

Software Developement Effective Practices and Federal Chalenges in Applying Agile Methods Read full text in English

2012 report GAO-12-681

To identify effective practices in applying Agile for software developement solutions and federal challenges in implementing Agile techniques.

In the report page 15-16

- staff preffered to work alone without showing constantly their work to customers, customers prefer a polished product

- dificulty to create the cross functional teams: technical staff and customers

- dificulties in taking a repsonsibilty as a team

- dificulties in colaborting toghether

- dificulties in applying self-directed work

- dificulties in commiting to more timely and frequent work

In the report page 17-18

- timely adoption of new tools

- technical environments are dificult to establish and mantain

- lack of clear Agile guidance

- delay in buying, installing, and learning new tools

- interactive project cannot follow the standard procedures

In the report: part Preparation (page 12)

- customers preffer a polished product

- lack of customers trust to interative solutions (because considering done one requirement could be considered that all relative functions were being met

- lack of customers participation

In the report page 18, 20

- Agile project need flexibility (public procurement practices do not support flexibility)

- challenge in changing the contractors in order to meet the time frames

- federal reporting practices do not align with Agile

- waterfall approach is more suitable while using public procurement practices

The risk cases visible on this page are collected and described by the e-Government Subgroup of the EUROSAI IT Working Group in contact with author Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI). In the same way, analytical assumptions and headings are chosen by the Subgroup. We encourage you to read the original texts by SAIs - to be found in the linked files.