The Federal Government is adopting Agile across many departments and agencies. Digital modernization, Lean-Agile and DevOps practices have the potential to transform your organization, but government agencies face unique challenges: government programs are some of the largest and most complex platforms in the world, coordinating multiple suppliers and vendors, security and compliance requirements, and complex acquisition and contracting lifecycles. How do you drive an agile, responsive, and innovation development approach in this environment? How do you know if your suppliers and vendors are actually collaborating and using the Agile best practices that have been specified by your agency?
Our Solutions
At Agile Rising, we have deep experience helping multiple federal agencies, including NASA, FBI, VA, and the FAA, successfully adopt the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) as an operating model (system). Our work includes thought leadership in Agile transformation within the Government and our consultants have helped Government transition from project-centric funding and work management models to flow-centric work management and value stream funding models. Our team helped develop the SAFe for Government course and GAO Agile Guide. We are long-time contributors to the SEI Agile Collaboration Group and have presented at the annual Inter-Agency Agile Seminar on Agile contracting and vendor management and Scaled Agile SAFe Day Government. We know the challenges you face, we have been there shoulder to shoulder with our Government and Military partners and customers, and we can help you navigate a successful implementation strategy.
We can also help provide the oversight needed for your implementation and systems integrator vendors through our advisory positioning as consultants and coaches.
SAFe Implementation Strategy Consulting and Training
When your agency adopts SAFe, it will be one of the largest and most complex adoptions you have undertaken. You do not want your implementation partner to be doing this for the first time. Only SAFe SPCT Gold Partners have validated experience successfully implementing SAFe, and Agile Rising has direct experience working at the CIO level in government agencies to make SAFe work and providing Agile Leadership Training. We will help your leadership drive the transformation, select appropriate partners for training and coaching, and be your guide on this complex journey. Agile Rising is a Small Business.
Development Vendor Oversight and Health Assessments
You have specified that your development vendors have to use a SAFe approach, but how do you know they are implementing it well? Do you want your SAFe strategists and coaches working for the same vendors that are supposed to be transforming their own development approaches? Agile Rising’s oversight and assessment approach provides you independent SAFe experts to assess the health and maturity of your SAFe implementation and your vendors’ SAFe adoption.
“ESC was able to prove with a pilot project and first two Agile Release Train (ART) launches that SAFe can deliver value faster, more effectively, with greater quality, and higher customer satisfaction than in recent history.”
Joe LaTorre, Ret. Maj., USMC, US Federal Civil Service, Ret., former Enterprise Agility Coach and Internal Change Agent, ESC
The case studies presented by Agile Rising consultants offer an accurate representation of the work they have performed, which has resulted in measurable real-world business outcomes. It is important to note that Agile Rising, as well as its consultants and employees, do not speak for or represent any of their customers. The data provided in these case studies is based on the actual observations, reports, and measurements taken during the consultant’s performance, and are presented as representative results from those engagements.
Therefore, we believe that businesses looking for insights and strategies for success can rely on these case studies as a reliable source of information and best practices. We can provide customer references to our valued future customers and partners upon request.
Federal Aviation Administration Agency Division Delivers 12 times faster time to market and 30% increase in productivity with SAFe on the Team
In 2016, Ms. Robyn Burk, Director of the Enterprise Services Center, and the ESC leadership team, established new organizational goals for continuous improvement and learning, with multiple objectives:
Become more predictable
Break down existing silos
Solve ongoing cultural challenges
Increase the quality of the products and services provided to ESC customers
Create a happier and more motivated workforce
Ms. Burk’s executive team went into action in early 2016 to position ESC to meet the objectives. Mr. Shenandoah Speers, ESC Information Service (IS) Deputy Division Manager, led the charge with Joe LaTorre as internal change agents for researching ways the organization could change the culture to meet the challenges facing the organizations growth in the future. Their research led to identifying the SAFe® as a guidance framework for fostering the growth of a Lean-Agile based value-centric operating model.
Organization: FAA Enterprise Services Center, 2016
Industry: Federal Government
Challenge: Director, Robin Burk, challenged her staff and organization to improve speed, quality and efficiency in order to compete more effectively against other shared services providers.
Solutions: SAFe 4.0, ITILv4
Results:
Teams completed an important infrastructure initiative 12% earlier than the target, with a broader scope and higher quality.
That contributed to an impressive approximately 30% increase in productivity on the pilot.
Employee engagement is up significantly based on anecdotal evidence. Several purely organic lean-agile teams have self-organized around a purpose.
“It was easy to see how SAFe® could fit well with our quarterly releases, and how our current organizational design could be enhanced by adopting the Agile mindset and implementing Lean, Kanban, Scrum/Extreme Programming (XP) practices. We just needed to bridge that divide between what we are doing today and what we intend to do in the future for our leaders and team members to understand and embrace the culture change.”
“ESC was able to prove with a pilot project and the first two ART launches that SAFe® can deliver value faster, more effectively, with greater quality, and higher customer satisfaction than in recent history,”
Joe LaTorre
Organization: an IT & Software Development organization
Industry: Federal Government
Challenges:
Significant organization budget cuts, simultaneous increase in scope of work with no funding.
Teams would regularly over commit capacity by 400% leading to false commitments and missed deadlines.
Reduction in work force.
Significant technical debts.
Inability to accurately account for and report on major solution O&M and enhancement costs.
Poor to non-existent metrics and baselines on flow metrics.
Reduced capacity to handle regulatory mandates and audits.
Challenges meeting security vulnerabilities and working POA&Ms.
Siloed customer contact with work created at the individual level.
Little to no feedback inherent in the system, culture of fear of failure.
Little to no purposeful built-in time for innovation
Inconsistent practices across teams; inability to perform Agile ways as teams due to near constant matrixing of people and fractional allocation on projects
No defensible project data or metrics or budgets
Lack of standard cadence across LOBs, varied sprint durations or no Agile, Scrum or “sprints” at all
Individuals syncing only weekly “as a team” (weak team concept)
Customers:
Limited or no customer NPS surveys; only hearsay or circumstantial evidence of performance
Federal Scoring Survey – limited capability, not able to show true engagement within the organization
Implementation started on disciplined and regular customer NPS survey
Federal Scoring Survey – worked with HR to capture org specific metrics and feedback for actionable improvement
Regular health assessments for organization and teams
Much better visibility into the work and the teams capacity and only commit to what the team capacity allows
Customer quotes in the context of System Demos and PI Planning:
“…I like the new approach –I know there weren’t many questions today, but I think that’s more of a reflection on the excellent work [the organization] continues to do.The schedule, and sharing what’s included in 21.2, is very helpful for us to plan our testing in the spring.”
“thanks…this was great and very informative”
“Thanks everyone -good info.”
“Thank you so much for your time and sharing all this information! :)”
“Looks great,…excited to watch this evolve!”
“…This team is AWESOME!”
Security team increases productivity 395%! and also supported multiple other initiatives such as IGAudits, Pen Tests, FedRAMP initiatives, and assessments?
“Ultimately, team Morale has improved & through transparency we have been able to add more team members. Our greatest gift has been clear direction through mutual planning, creating unity, backed frequent iteration checkups?”
Flow efficiency trend increased over 10%, despite budget cuts and increased load
Lead time did go up only 4.5% as compared over FY19-FY22 period, given significant RIF and budget cuts
However, the release rate increased 2x!
Quality is better, [defect-to-test run ratio] 55% decrease! (Baseline FY19-FY20 and transformation years FY21-FY22)
Key service and solution network teams flow predictability stabilized within SPC
Implemented Lean Portfolio Management function (in-progress)
Controlling intake of significant work efforts rather than “gaming” traditional phase gate waterfall and PMO processes
Managing investments using the Startup Way, rather than assumption based models and huge batches
Strategic prioritization of large investments
Key qualitative indicators:
Strategic Objective alignment – ability of the organization and teams to understand how work aligns to Administration strategy
Ability to plan work and manage backlogs effectively vs. near constant re-prioritization, unclear understanding of requirements and SOW, and ever growing technical debts
Developed internal customer relationships and understanding of how much capacity exists in the system, supportable by data and performance metrics
Significant feedback markers and loops created with notable actionable improvements in the system
Ability to “swarm” to quickly address changes late in development without massive disruption to the teams and commitments (capacity planning and management, proactive risk management)
Comprehensive demonstrations of working solutions rather than powerpoint status updates
Coming soon.
Organization: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
Industry: Federal Government
Challenge:
Solutions: SAFe 5.0
Results:
Coming soon.
Organization: FAA-AJW-NDP
Industry: Federal Government
Challenge:
Solutions: SAFe 5.1
Results:
Coming soon.
Organization:FBI
Industry: Federal Government
Challenge:
Solutions: SAFe 5.1
Results:
Currently serving NASA, FAA, FBI, VA, and Federal Government sector systems integrators and vendors.
Agile Rising is currently performing in change leadership, consulting, and executive/team coaching roles for Digital, Lean-Agile transformations using SAFe as an operating system, TBM, ITIL, and Jira Software and Jira Align, PI Planning.io tool implementations. Contract vehicles: Agile Rising can engage under SEWP V, eFAST and GSA Schedule 70 contract vehicles through our partner network.
Contact us today to speak with one of our experts about the solutions for your organization.
In 2016, Ms. Robyn Burk, Director of the Enterprise Services Center, and the ESC leadership team, established new organizational goals for continuous improvement and learning, with multiple objectives:
, [defect-to-test run ratio] 55% decrease! (Baseline FY19-FY20 and transformation years FY21-FY22)