Agile Pathfinder Programme for local public services

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Leaflets

This initiative sets out the objectives of a new programme for testing the agile methodology for supporting and delivering radical business change in local public services.

Fully supported by the Government's CIO Council, the programme will be managed through a collaboration between Socitm Insight and IndigoBlue Consulting Ltd who specialise in the agile methodology.   

Socitm Insight is seeking four to six volunteer organisations with suitable projects to create a Agile Pathfinder Programme (APP) starting no later than September 2011.

Background

Following a recommendation by The Institute for Government in its report System Error: Fixing the flaws in Government IT' (March 2011), the Cabinet Office requires in its ICT Strategy for Government (April 2011) that all government bodies implement a minimum of one ICT-enabled project during 2011/12 that uses agile methodology.

Originating as a software development methodology, agile has evolved. Now it spans three main areas; programme governance, project management and engineering , all of which Indigo Blues can support  It has a place in the support and delivery of business change and service transformation in local public services.  In this community we should seek to understand:

• the value of agile
• how agile fits with current business change thinking, methodologies, tools, practice and culture
• how best to test the use of agile in a small number of representative local business change/IT enabled projects in order to support or challenge the hypothesis
• develop evidence of its value, how best to promote the adoption of agile in a wider range of future ICT-enabled programmes and projects for the public sector.

The Pathfinder Programme for 2011

Socitm Insight is seeking four to six volunteer organisations with suitable projects to create an Agile Pathfinder Programme (APP) starting no later than September 2011 with a proportion of project objectives delivered within this financial year.  The projects should be diverse in scale, business area, type of application and type of organisation in order to test a representative range of situations in which agile working can be deployed to support successful outcomes.  As with all projects, it will be key to identify enthusiastic and committed sponsors and managers who will drive outcomes to time and budget.  The pathfinders need to be able to answer the question:

Were these projects more successful, the same or less successful, when using an agile methodology than when using existing methods?

One of the legacies of the pathfinder programme ought to be a testable level of self-sufficiency within the participant organisations to be able to embark on new agile projects beyond the pathfinder period (and support knowledge share to other public sector bodies).

The agile methodology

Agile techniques are about becoming much more flexible, responsive to change and innovative. Development is modular and iterative, based on user involvement and feedback. Early delivery of core working functions is the priority.

In general, agile projects follow four main principles:

• Modularity. This involves splitting up complex problems and projects into smaller components and portions of functionality which can be prioritised. Each module should be capable of working both in a standalone fashion and in concert with other modules. This can reduce the time to delivery, enabling users to access the functionality of modules developed early, without necessarily having to wait until all of the original specification has been built. It can also make upgrades and changes easier as systems can be altered module by module or new modules can be added to the original design.
• An iterative approach. This acknowledges that the best solution and means of delivering it are not always known at the start. By trialling in short iterations, receiving feedback and learning from mistakes a much more successful system can evolve than if everything is planned and set in stone at the outset.
• Responsiveness to change. Shorter iterations and regular reviews provide opportunities for changes to be made and priorities adjusted within an agile project. The solution is developed in line with a prioritised requirements list, with users and technical experts agreeing what they will focus on in the current iteration.
• Putting users at the core. Agile projects ensure that users or business champions are embedded within the project team. This enables the business to provide continuous input and refinement, ensuring that what is delivered meets their needs. It also demands that business users become closer to IT development than has sometimes been the case.

Extract from System error: Fixing the flaws in government IT (Institute for Government)

Sample projects

Agile projects could be in any one of a range of typical change scenarios for local public services, including:

• Rebuilding legacy applications with new versions of software.
• Internal development of web applications, eg online social and health are solutions to meet new commissioning approaches
• External IT contracts and outsourced/external suppliers, eg generally a wide range of potential solutions have to be matched within the boundaries of the pre-agreed contractual arrangements, the degree of influence over the partner and the capability/willingness of the partner to work in an agile way.
• Public / private partnerships, eg in a shared services context in order to enable continuous improvement
• Open Source implementations, especially in early projects         
• Review or revision of current business / IT projects, eg ones that are problematic and/or predicted to mis-deliver or 'shelved' projects that failed financial approval and could be recast in agile terms, eg by focusing on an incremental delivery strategy that provides an early return on some of the function without having to deliver the entire solution

To ensure that the pathfinders have the best probability of success in terms of support, IndigoBlue, one of the UK's leading agile expert organisations, has agreed to contribute twenty days of support to the Agile Pathfinder Programme working alongside Socitm Insight.  We envisage that the support will take the form of a group project initiation workshop coupled with largely remote e-mail, telephone and video-conferencing based support coinciding with individual project milestones, issue resolution, etc.

Socitm Insight will assist in framing the Agile Pathfinder Programme (APP) objectives, will help to track progress and to summarise conclusions and recommendations from the study.  Socitm Insight will produce a report and case studies in conjunction with the participating authorities.  The report will be widely distributed to members and the wider public sector to help inform future decision-making in relation to the adoption of agile working. The associated selection of the KPIs used to set goals, monitor and report on the pathfinder outcomes needs careful consideration and we will work with the shortlisted organisations to agree them.

Invitation to participate

For those interested in being one of the four to six pathfinders, we invite respondents to complete a short summary of their proposed project in no more than two sides of A4. 

The responses should summarise:

1. Name of organisation, sponsor, proposed project manager and key contact details
2. Outline of project including business need, objectives, deliverables,  key stakeholders, key risks and constraints
3. Current status of the project, eg pre-scoping, approved not initiated, initiated with key issues anticipated
4. How your organisation would use the pathfinder experience to benefit its own and other organisations.

Next steps

Qualifying organisations must be in a position to initiate their projects no later than 30 September 2011 and all must commit to a timeframe whereby outputs are delivered incrementally before 31 March 2012. 

We envisage that most of the pathfinder projects and activities will already be identified rather than necessarily requiring organisations to sponsor new ones.  We must stress that, whilst support will be provided from IndigoBlue, no new additional funding is available to participant pathfinder organisations.

We believe that a manageable pathfinder initiative with comprise  no more than four to six organisations and as such Socitm will review and short-list all applications to ensure the pathfinder mix contains a representative cross-section of its membership. We request that responses are e-mailed to insight@socitm.net no later than 1 August 2011.  We plan to inform successful participants no later than 15 August 2011.

Further information

IndigoBlue: russell.charlesworth@indigoblue.co.uk
Socitm Insight: martin.greenwood@socitm.net

Last modified: 30th June 2011