A multidepartmental effort is underway in California to incorporate new policies and processes for agile IT development within existing workflows.
The project is wide-ranging. California state CIO Amy Tong told Techwire on Wednesday that the state is looking at what changes are needed so that agile can be used within the state’s current framework for project management, project approval, independent project oversight and other key functions.
The intent is to create an environment where agencies and departments could use either agile development or a traditional waterfall-style approach depending on the situation, Tong said.
“It’s really depending on the readiness of the organization, depending on what business problem needs to be solved. And what is the market availability for the various solutions that can be applied. It’s a combination — a slew of things — that determine which is the best methodology to be utilized,” Tong said.
The state is using some outside help to do its analysis. Last month the Office of Systems Integration signed a one-year contract worth nearly $400,000 with Kiefer Consulting, which will provide agile consulting services.
Under the contract, Kiefer project manager Sean Hansen and subcontractor Dan Hon will complete a series of deliverables, such as a gap analysis of the state’s current processes for project approval, oversight, procurement and contracting, and give recommendations for how agile can be incorporated into those existing processes.
Hon previously worked for Code for America and consulted the California Health and Human Services Agency when officials decided last year to use agile for modernizing the state’s child welfare system.
“He’s definitely one of the most visible figures,” Tong said. “Behind him, there’s a team of individuals that are giving ideas to the state of California.”
Tong reiterated that input is coming from a variety of sources, whether it be the Government Operations Agency and Department of Technology, CHHS, or the Office of Systems Integration. The civic innovation community also remains engaged, Tong said, and last week the federal government’s 18F project delivery innovation team visited GovOps.
Tong was involved in developing the contract’s scope of work when she was the agency information officer for CHHS and Office of System Integration’s deputy director, prior to assuming the interim state CIO job in March. (The Brown administration appointed Tong to the position permanently last week.)
The idea is, although California is using the child welfare project as a demonstration effort to apply the agile methodology, that alone will not be enough, Tong explained. Changes will be needed to the state’s existing policies and processes to make them conducive for agile, she said.
For example, Tong said waterfall-based principles were refreshed in the state’s new updated project management framework, but agile now should be incorporated. And the state’s project approval process, called the Project Approval Lifecycle, needs to be updated so that the appropriate methodology — either agile or waterfall — is identified and selected from the beginning for each IT project.
“That’s one purpose of the contract: bring in measurement from firms and individuals that have that kind of experience, so we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Tong said.
