enterprise

Erich Knausenberger and Raj Shah examine the challenges of implementing earned value management and program management to implementing agile for government IT. Then, the authors propose a “blended-approach” by which government and other large entities can address these and other challenges.

Although “agile architecture” may sound like an oxymoron to you, the reality is that a simple, elegant architecture is a key enabler of any successful system, particularly large scale ones. Scott Ambler describes agile architecture practices-at both the project and enterprise level-that form a middle ground between the extremes of big architecture up-front and outright hacking. Scott discusses agile modeling practices-initial architecture envisioning, proving an architecture with working code, and just-in-time model storming-that enable agile teams to benefit from architectural modeling without suffering the drawbacks of detailed design documentation. Beyond architecture, Scott introduces agile design techniques-continuous integration (CI), test-driven development (TDD), and refactoring-that build on and provide feedback to an emergent architecture.

As technology development programs represent some of the biggest line items on agency budgets, there should be little surprise that agile development, with its promise of a fast, lightweight, and iterative approach to delivery of value, has caught the attention of officials from across the government space as they seek to improve their programs’ productivity and effectiveness.

Scott Ambler is chief methodologist for IT with IBM Rational. Heather Shanholtzer recently had the opportunity to talk to Scott about scaling agile for enterprise organizations, how agile affects leadership and requirements on large teams, and his Disciplined Agile Delivery framework.