Decision makers are out of touch with key constituencies, preventing them from grasping the underlying need and from controlling the work being done.
Tag Archives: procurement
Preventing lousy vendors from bidding on your custom software project.
Agencies can ward off lousy software developers and attract better ones by owning copyright, publishing open source, and issuing smaller contracts.
Publishing your agency’s software as open source puts you at a major advantage.
There are some enormously compelling arguments in favor of agencies preemptively publishing source code, which results in reduced cost, increased trust, and higher-quality results.
Budgeting for software projects in “scrum team years.”
Scrum-team years give program teams, budgeting, procurement, and oversight a common currency of understanding.
How an agency principal should oversee a major custom software project.
When an agency principal lacks the knowledge to understand and control major software projects, they are handing their control of the agency to some consulting firm’s project manager.
The work before the work: what agencies need to do before bringing on an Agile vendor.
An Agile vendor team cannot be successful unless the agency has prepared for them.
Why governors put this over here, with the rest of the fire.
When presented with a disastrous, multi-year, failing, mission-critical software project, a governor will double down on the failing strategy. Here’s why.
Government should procure custom software as open source.
Government software becomes vastly better when it’s procured as open source. Normally, government buys closed-source custom software. Government never looks at the source code. The public can’t inspect it. Is it any good? No, it is not. There is no incentive to make it good. In fact, there’s a perverse incentive: hard to maintain means …
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I want you to become a government tech vendor.
Hey, competent tech folks: your country needs you. Your knowledge, your experience, and your connections can improve the United States for everybody. I’m not asking you to go work for the federal government. I’m not asking you to go work for a non-profit. I’m asking you to become a government technology vendor. I want you to sign up at …
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