This is not a bad article. The reporter manages to cover a complex subject in an easy-to-understand way. I liked it.
I will point out, however, that there's a huge assumption lurking in there that wasn't explicitly stated: somebody on the government side has to know what they want and be willing to take the heat if they get it wrong. _This_ is the reason so many agencies prefer waterfall -- there's enough obfuscation and paperwork involved that when somebody complains, and in high-risk projects there'll always be complainers, nobody is really at fault. The coder guys can point back to the designer guys. The designer guys can point back to the requirements guys. You'd think that the requirements guys, the guys at the front of the waterfall, would catch all the blame, and they do. But they just write bug tickets because some aspect of the process wasn't followed well enough.
You can spend hours or days trying to figure out what went wrong and not know anything more than you did before you started. Which is exactly why the system has evolved the way it has.
I hear a lot more government projects are going to be Agile. Here's wishing them luck. If done correctly, Agile will 'debug' the organizational problems that lead to this bad performance over and over again. If they just sprinkle a little Agile nomenclature on top of things, it won't do anything at all.
I will point out, however, that there's a huge assumption lurking in there that wasn't explicitly stated: somebody on the government side has to know what they want and be willing to take the heat if they get it wrong. _This_ is the reason so many agencies prefer waterfall -- there's enough obfuscation and paperwork involved that when somebody complains, and in high-risk projects there'll always be complainers, nobody is really at fault. The coder guys can point back to the designer guys. The designer guys can point back to the requirements guys. You'd think that the requirements guys, the guys at the front of the waterfall, would catch all the blame, and they do. But they just write bug tickets because some aspect of the process wasn't followed well enough.
You can spend hours or days trying to figure out what went wrong and not know anything more than you did before you started. Which is exactly why the system has evolved the way it has.
I hear a lot more government projects are going to be Agile. Here's wishing them luck. If done correctly, Agile will 'debug' the organizational problems that lead to this bad performance over and over again. If they just sprinkle a little Agile nomenclature on top of things, it won't do anything at all.