The managing director of GSA’s 18F digital services agency, Robert Read, has called for greater involvement of the end-user throughout the IT acquisition lifecycle.
In a recent post on DigitalGov.gov Read advocates for agile development for government IT projects (where projects aim to deliver testable applications in “sprints” and refine them through a testing and development cycle of continuous improvement). In particular he calls for bringing end-users into the room not only for discovery, requirements gathering or testing, but actually having them in the same space where developers are hacking away.
It makes sense to not wait until you’re nearing completion to find out your end-user would need or prefer modifications, and it’s worth keeping in mind a crucial concept that “you are not your end-user,” something easier to do when sharing the same space.
Read’s post, How to Run an Agile Project in Government, doesn’t really give a step-by-step guide as the title might suggest, but his notes for the presentation are worth a look:
https://18f.github.io/consulting/assets/docs/How_to_Run_an_Agile_Project_in_Government.pdf