Experimentation in federal procurement: 30 days or less for an agile team
Learn how USCIS has experimented with the procurement process in order to shorten the time to contract award, and how the results have been applied to larger procurements.
Learn how USCIS has experimented with the procurement process in order to shorten the time to contract award, and how the results have been applied to larger procurements.
Agile teams at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are weaving Section 508 compliance testing into the development process as early as possible while building a culture of training and teamwork to improve compliance processes.
Sarah Fahden, the chief of the Verification Program Portfolio at USCIS, said the journey to being a dev/ops or agile shop started quickly after DHS made the project a high priority modernization program almost six years ago.
In a July 26 letter to DHS Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa, several vendors who had been awarded spots to participate in FLASH offered encouragement and appreciation to the agency despite the disappointing outcome of the attempted contract.
The Homeland Security Department is looking beyond the "DevOps" trend -- blending development teams with operations teams to encourage closer collaboration and quick deployments -- with the intention of adding security teams into the mix.
Using agile methods to update multiple pieces of its verification system while still maintaining the legacy system for customer use, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) is 'changing the tire while driving," according to Federal News Radio.
While FLASH was flawed, it showed the tremendous potential of running a contracting process that rewards excellence at designing and building working software, rather than competence in writing proposals and navigating bureaucracy.
FLASH’s cancellation is likely a reflection of the challenges agencies have setting up new initiatives, and observers should not take it as a sign agencies don’t have an appetite for agile software development services.
Mark Schwartz, the groundbreaking chief information officer at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in the Homeland Security Department, is leaving government.
The report DHS filed with the Government Accountability Office said pulling the contract "is the only viable option to address the many issues that DHS has identified as problems with the requirement and the record."