U S Government Accountability Office

Financial Regulation U S Government Accountability Office

Federal agencies depend on IT to support their missions and spent at least $76 billion on IT in fiscal year 2011. However, long-standing congressional interest has contributed to the identification of numerous examples of lengthy IT projects that incurred cost overruns and schedule delays while contributing little to mission-related outcomes. To reduce the risk of such problems, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommends modular software delivery consistent with an approach known as Agile, which calls for producing software in small, short increments. Recently, several agencies have applied Agile practices to their software projects. Accordingly, GAO was asked to identify (1) effective practices in applying Agile for software development solutions and (2) federal challenges in implementing Agile development techniques. To do so, GAO identified and interviewed ten experienced users and officials from five federal projects that used Agile methods and analyzed and categorized their responses.