The Cabinet Office has confirmed that it is considering setting up a framework contract for the procurement of ‘agile’ project development services, which, by focussing on developing government ICT programmes using the Agile development framework can act as a major step towards ending draconian overspend and mitigate against failure of future projects. This is according to Andy Margolis, managing director of Totally Communications, a provider of bespoke web enabled technology.
Margolis comments: "We have realised huge benefits from using Agile methodology. Benefits such as completing projects ahead of schedule, reduced costs and no compromise on quality, are now standard practice. The core advantage of working within an agile framework is the ability to respond and react to any stumbling blocks that you may encounter along the life of a project. Working with this flexibility can have a major impact on the UK Government's ability to deliver its projects of the future.
"The reputation of government ICT projects is one of spiralling expense and rigidity of implementation. Historical projects such as the Libra courts management system and the C-NOMIS offender management IT system, both of which overran by more than one hundred percent of projected cost, has left the incumbent UK Government needing to avoid pitfalls of this magnitude for future ICT developments as the budget just will not accommodate it.
"Deliberately targeting providers who operate using an Agile method can avoid these embarrassing failures, and the framework for agile development services will encourage the use of agile methods across more areas of government. During such difficult financial conditions, Agile methods not only keep initial costs to a minimum but at the same time restricts project costs from spiralling unnecessarily."
