Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Government Information Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf

Agile innovation management in government: A research agenda

Ines Mergel Dr.
University of Konstanz, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Governments are facing an information technology upgrade and legacy problem: outdated systems and acquisi-
Received 16 July 2016 tion processes are resulting in high-risk technology projects that are either over budget or behind schedule. Re-
Received in revised form 19 July 2016 cent catastrophic technology failures, such as the failed launch of the politically contested online marketplace
Accepted 19 July 2016
Healthcare.gov in the U.S. were attributed to an overreliance on external technology contractors and failures to
Available online 7 September 2016
manage large-scale technology contracts in government. As a response, agile software development and modular
Keywords:
acquisition approaches, new independent organizational units equipped with fast reacting teams, in combination
Agile government with a series of policy changes are developed to address the need to innovate digital service delivery in govern-
Agility ment. This article uses a process tracing approach, as well as initial qualitative interviews with a subset of exec-
Agile development utives and agency-level digital services members to provide an overview of the existing policies and
Digital service delivery implementation approaches toward an agile innovation management approach. The article then provides a re-
Innovation search framework including research questions that provide guidance for future research on the managerial im-
plementation considerations necessary to scale up the initial efforts and move toward a collaborative and agile
innovation management approach in government.
© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.

1. Introduction development processes, adjusted procurement procedures, combined

with HR policies, and organizational and managerial approaches to sup-
Previous waves of digital innovation management were closely con- port innovative digital service delivery in government. Innovation in
nected to fads and fashions in public management. The New Public government software development are created by using an agile soft-
Management era for example brought about disaggregation, competi- ware development approach adopted from private sector and especially
tion, and incentives to outsource digital service delivery and reduced IT sector organizations that are involved in creating software projects on
skills and capacities in government (Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow, & a shortened project management life cycle. In comparison to the tradi-
Tinkler, 2005). The result is that contract managers in government are tional waterfall project management approach in which each phase se-
oftentimes following a performance-based acquisition process that quentially follows the previous phase, an agile approach focuses on
aims to anticipate the final software products within a rigid framework shorter development phases and radical collaboration with the client
of contract fulfillment obligations. These IT acquisition norms led to in- in each phase. Subprojects and results are presented and tested imme-
creased complexities, delays or even failed delivery of digital services diately and not delayed until the final product is presented at the end
(Anthopoulos, Reddick, Giannakidou, & Mavridis, 2016): as an example of the fully completed contract. The method evolved as part of a ‘new
the U.S. Healthcare.gov virtual marketplace to sell mandatory health in- product management’ approach in Japan and was subsequently
surance coverage to citizens failed to launch and had to be rescued by a adopted by the IT industry (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986).
team of Google engineers in an emergency turn-around that cost several Recent developments have shown that government agencies are
100 million dollars over the initially contracted price. As a result, practi- implementing similar approaches in order to update large-scale legacy
tioners and researchers are now calling for adaptive (Janssen & van der system and adapt to environmental changes and citizen requests faster.
Voort, 2016), anticipatory (Bertot, Estevez, & Janowski, 2016), and agile Driven by negative experiences, the overreliance on external IT contrac-
(Balter, 2011; Margetts & Dunleavy, 2013) approaches to reintegrate tors, and management oversight failures, the current administration
digital service delivery with a holistic focus on human- and client-cen- took the introduction of HealthCare.gov as a stepping stone to introduce
tered design delivered through shorter development cycles. agile development processes. In 2013, HealthCare.gov was initiated by a
Agile innovation management is introduced here as an umbrella top-down Presidential mandate to create an online marketplace that
term that describes a set of project management and software brings together insurance providers offering health insurance to indi-
vidual citizens based on the income, family status, and location of
their residence by state. The implementation was a massive IT failure
E-mail address: [email protected]. that included over 50 subcontractors and IT spending of over $800

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.07.004
0740-624X/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.
 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523 517

million (see for example Christy, 2016). The contractors and those re- 2.1. Traditional software development process: sequential, waterfall soft-
sponsible at the Department of Health and Human Services never con- ware development
ducted test runs with a subset of user groups, instead the decision was
to go live on the day of the reveal of the platform. For the administration Most IT contracts and internal modes of software development in
this was the first time they saw the platform running after months of the public sector use a sequential process, in which one phase has to
development. Similarly other high-risk IT projects fail in government: be completed before the team is allowed to progress to the next
94% of IT projects in the U.S. federal government are over budget and be- phase. This progression “flows from top to bottom, like a cascading wa-
hind schedule and 40% are never finished (Torgovnick, 2016). terfall” and is therefore called the waterfall development method
The traditional waterfall software development methods in the cur- (Royce, 1970). The core belief here is that by finishing each phase and
rent acquisition paradigm of government contracting is highly eliminating any possible mistakes for this phase, future phases won't
intransparent and dissatisfying both for government clients who do not be impacted by mistakes and the project team won't lose time and
receive the expected products, as well as for contractors who are tied to money by going back to fix the mistakes.
the existing acquisition and contracting rules to deliver what is defined The downside is that contract managers and developers must have a
in incomplete IT contracts. As Read (2016) in a recent TechInsider post fully developed plan before they write a request for proposals, sign a
said: “Government workers tend not to invite the customers to see the sau- contract, and start work on the final product. The reality in government
sage being made, but wait until the silver platter is ready”. is however, that IT professionals and contract managers don't have all
The data collected for this study were informed by an initial litera- the final details available to define and specify the details of a contract.
ture review of mostly the computer science literature to derive the This circumstance oftentimes leads to contract add-ons or extensions to
core concept of agile software development and to contrast it to tradi- accommodate for changing internal needs or to fill in the gaps that exist
tional development methods. This distinction drawn in the literature at the beginning of the request for proposals phase.
as well as in government policies, guidance documents, and reports Given the fixed structure of IT contracts in government, risk-aver-
were then used to inform a semi-structured interview outline for gov- sion to veer outside the contractual obligations and oftentimes unfore-
ernment officials in the U.S. federal government (Drever, 1995). The in- seen adjustments, government organizations tend to follow initial
terview partners included eight top managers of the central digital rigid contractual structure (Balter, 2011). Project phases are predefined
transformation team located in the General Services Administration with deadlines and deliverables that are tied to payments and leave lit-
(GSA) responsible for replicating practices across the federal govern- tle room for fluid adjustments that might be necessary to fit in initial
ment and representatives of five different federal departments in the omissions or client changes along the development process. As a result,
U.S. government which have already started to apply agile innovation waterfall methods are criticized for their rigidity, inflexibility, and lack
management approaches. The selection includes one case only – the of communication with the clients and users during the development
U.S. federal government – mainly because the case is well-documented process. They tend to fill the contract requirements and support risk-
by government technology media articles, but also because each agency averse approaches of government contract managers, but might not sat-
faces similar contextual opportunities and constraints (Strauss & Corbin, isfy the users, clients, or government employees who have to use the
1998). Other governments, such as the United Kingdom or the Nether- final product to support the mission of their organization (GAO,
lands have gained similar experiences and more research is needed to 2012). At the end, waterfall methods are not able to respond to changes
understand each case in depth. The interviews, document search and in the environment that are destined to happen, especially in large-
tracing, as well as the existing literature were then used to draw initial scale, long-term delivery contracts. As a result, expensive follow-up ser-
conclusions about the concept of agile innovation management. vice contracts have to be signed to manage required changes and re-
This article first reviews the development of agile approaches, the spond to the actual user requirements. A waterfall process shown in
underlying principles, the components of an agile development process the following figure therefore favors the final product and contract com-
in contrast to a traditional waterfall project management approach pre- pliance over users' needs and actual use of the final product (Fig. 1):
ferred by IT contractors, and then highlights the benefits and challenges A major disadvantage of a waterfall development approach is that
of agile development in government. The article then presents insights while the project team works through each phase, it can never respond
from a process tracing approach (Collier, 2011) and initial qualitative in- to changing needs and requirements and never knows the true progress
terviews and presents a two-layered research framework using agile or final outcomes. Only at the end – at what are usually mega launches –
principles for the implementation of agile innovation management the software might fail and problems are not known until the end. The
based on the insights of the U.S. federal government case. Agile innova- customer or contract owner is only invited to get involved in testing
tion management is presented here as a comprehensive framework that the final product at the end of the development process. Evaluations
highlights how agile methods also need policy and management chang- of the project status do not occur until the very end.
es in order to contribute to government innovations. Finally, the article
ends with a set of open research questions that need empirical evidence 2.2. The alternative: agile, overlapping development
to understand the concept of agile government, acquisition processes,
cultural changes, as well as HR and training needs. While the step-wise process initially made sense, Royce (1970) stat-
ed already in 1970 that it is “risky and invites failure”. He continues to
2. Agile development process: from sequential to overlapping soft-
ware development

The development, management, and operation of IT projects in gov-

ernment traditionally follow a waterfall approach: tackling one piece of
the development phase at a time and providing the final product to the
buyer. This is largely attributed to the current acquisition procedures
and contracting practices. Recently, more and more agile development
approaches that are well-established in the private sector have been
moved into government operations, challenging project management,
acquisition rules and standards, as well as the culture of project teams
and contract managers. In the following, a brief overview of these two
different approaches is provided. Fig. 1. Waterfall development process.
518 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523

explain: “The testing phase which occurs at the end of the development radical collaboration: clients are working closely with IT engineers and
cycle is the first event for which timing, storage, input/output transfers, developers.
etc., are experienced as distinguished from analyzed.” (Royce Another important characteristic of an agile approach is continuous
1970:329). The reality in government is that there are continuously delivery of output to the clients (Agile Manifesto, 2001; Martin, 2003):
changing developments and developers cannot assume that agencies, the fluid involvement of the client in the development process allows
especially non-IT contract managers, are able to adequately predict for continuous feedback and improvement in all stages of the process.
the specifications of large-scale IT projects. This is an immense challenge This requires an increased time commitment by the client – be it a gov-
for the acquisition process and the way vendors and contractors who ernment agency's representatives or the citizens. These agile character-
win a bid are then tied to the process and predefined outcomes. istics shift practices and values: the value is not generated by delivering
In contrast to waterfall development methods, agile development is a final product that fulfills the initial RFP or contract. Instead, value is
a method that involves creating, testing, and improving technology created by putting the client at the center of the project and delivering
products incrementally, instead of waiting for the foolproof delivery a final product that benefits the client and creates value for the public.
by the end of the contract period in a traditional IT contracting agree- Similar modular software development approaches include rapid or spi-
ment. Agile methods were first introduced outside the IT industry, but ral development as alternatives to waterfall methods. Here – as defined
are mostly known for its advances in software development: by the case selected – I focus on agile approaches only.
the physicist and statistician Walter Shewhart of Bell Labs began apply- The following figure shows the iterative sprint cycles as part of the
ing Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles to the improvement of products overall development process (Fig. 2):
and processes (Goldman & Preiss, 1994). His approach constitutes the Rigby, Sutherland, and Takeuchi (2016a) note that agile methods
first iterative and incremental development approach to rapidly re- can be best applied in contexts with complex problems when the final
spond to changes and actual findings in the development process. solution might not be predictable or is initially unknown to both clients
In 1986, Takeuchi and Nonaka introduced a team-oriented approach and developers – especially environments like government. They also
to bring products to market faster and called it the “rugby” approach note, that agile methods need training and potentially behavioral
“where a team tries to go the whole distance as a unit, passing the ball change, not just in the use of new technologies and approaches, but
back and forth” (Rigby, Sutherland, & Takeuchi, 2016b; Takeuchi & also in terms of attitudes toward contracting and involvement of clients
Nonaka, 1986). They started to consider large software development and developers in project teams (Agile Manifesto, 2001).
projects as multiple independent tasks. Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986) Using an agile approach supports more adaptive governance ap-
called their iterative and incremental agile software development proaches as promoted by Janssen and van der Voort (2016): instead of
framework the scrum method: small, self-organizing, adaptive teams predicting and prescribing the outcomes, an adaptive government can
that are tasked with solving complex problems using overlapping de- use agile methods to increase its flexibility in responding to changes
velopment phases. The tasks are broken down into small, manageable and might in the process even deliver less costly innovations in govern-
modules and use the short development cycles, hold brief daily ment. However only using agile software development approaches is
“stand-up” meetings to review progress and identify roadblocks that not enough to fundamentally change how government can tackle the
might prevent them from moving forward. In addition, progress is visu- update and legacy problems it faces. Instead, a multi-layered approach
alized in a process management system called Kanban, that helps teams is needed that goes beyond the development approach. In the following,
to reduce lead times and the amount of work in process. In the mean- based on the case of the U.S. federal government a comprehensive agile
time, these principles are also included in the agile development mani- innovation management approach is outlined.
festo (Agile Manifesto, 2001).
The starting point for an agile development process is qualitative re-
search conducted by the project team to understand what the needs of 3. Implementing agile innovation management practices: the case of
the clients are. Clients in government can be agencies and contract man- the U.S. federal government
agers themselves, or external clients, such as partners or citizens who
will use the final product. These user stories are collected using the lan- Tracing the process of agile innovation management in the U.S. federal
guage of the clients to avoid misconception or translation mistakes with government is relatively difficult, because there is no official mandate for
the hope that using language that is known and familiar to the client a comprehensive strategy at this point. Individual agencies are making
will ultimately make it easier for them to use the final product and easily progress using initial guidance from the Office of Management and Bud-
integrate it into their day-to-day use. An important principle of agile de- get (OMB) to adapt their IT acquisition practices or collaborate with the
velopment processes is to be able to react to changes that are initiated to General Service Administration's technology transformation service
the changing requirements from clients, or as Cockburn (2002, 10) puts 18F1 to get advice on how to use agile methods. Agencies were asked to
it, it is “a declaration of prioritizing for project management vulnerabil- submit confidential budgets that are not publicly available to outline the
ity with respect to shifting requirements, shifting technology, and a need for resources to invest in agile innovation management practices.
shifting understanding the situation.” In the following, Collier's (2011) approach is used to trace the process
The agile development method follows so-called ‘sprint cycles’ so through which government documents has encouraged agencies to ex-
that the development teams by design fail often and early, instead of periment with agile methodologies and improve their acquisition prac-
failing catastrophically and wasting taxpayer money as seen with the tices. The goal is to make causal observations by combing document
U.S. online marketplace for sale of health insurances, Healthcare.gov. reviews with empirical evidence from initial qualitative interviews.
The iterations – or sprints – are following the traditional waterfall in A recent GAO report (2015) has criticized the existing standard op-
each segment, but usually take between 1 and 8 weeks for each seg- erating procedures for IT acquisition: “Federal investments in informa-
ment, and projects lasts no longer than six months. Similar to project tion technology (IT) have often resulted in multimillion dollar cost
teams in the IT industry, this approach follows the motto: ‘fail fast, overruns and years-long schedule delays, with questionable mission-re-
early, and often’ with small prototypes that rapidly prove (or disprove) lated achievements.” A case in point is the HealthCare.gov implementa-
an idea before much is invested (Leetaru, 2016). The initial plan serves tion disaster. GAO (2014) has attributed the failure of the IT platform to
as guidance, but the plans are revised after each iteration and the devel-
opment output is demonstrated to the client and other stakeholders.
This early evaluation phase reveals which requirements may not have
been fully addressed and can be added as a work package for the next 1
The agency name 18F is derived from its location at 18th and F Street in Washington,
sprint. One important characteristic of an agile approach is therefore DC.
 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523 519

Fig. 2. Agile sprint cycles.

mistakes in contract planning and lack of oversight practices among the 2012a), so that the project team evaluated the existing software devel-
responsible Department of Health and Human Service's IT staff. opment methodologies and moved to sprint cycles including outside
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has instructed federal stakeholders in the process and more effectively managed risks, costs,
departments and agencies to use part of their IT budget to set up digital and outcomes. Small teams of a manageable size (up to 15 team mem-
service teams modeled after the U.S. Digital Service team – a quick re- bers) are set up to create collaborations between FBI employees and
sponse team located in the White House that helped with the recovery government contractors. These teams are using iterative development
of HealthCare.gov. This shift in moving resources toward improving cus- within the scrum project management framework: iterative develop-
tomer-centric service delivery follows the 2011 Executive Order 13571 ment ‘sprints’, each sprint involves the completion of a small set of
(The White House, 2011) and OBM's implementation instructions tasks in two week cycles, reducing the risk of large scale failure.
(Office of Management and Budget, 2011), the 2012 White House' Dig- At the Department of Defense, the term agile is used as an umbrella
ital Strategy (The White House, 2012b), and the Presidential Memoran- term for many different iterative development processes, including
dum instructing the federal government to work toward ‘Building a 21st Scrum, Lean Development, or extreme programming (XP) (Broadus,
Century Digital Government’ (The White House, 2012c). 2013). Agile methods are included into contract documents as detailed
In 2014, the White House established the U.S. Digital Services team – in the 2010 Defense Acquisition Bill (2010) (Sutherland, 2012), howev-
a quick response team of IT engineers recruited from the private sector er DoD officials experienced that for example technical documentations
to help with Presidential priority IT projects - and the General Services were missing at critical design reviews and therefore recommends to
Administration's 18F software development teams. Engineers are re- invest more in training contract managers and contractors in agile prac-
cruited from technology companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Goo- tices (Lapham, 2012). In a recent speech, the Secretary of Defense Carter
gle, Microsoft, or Amazon. The so-called ‘digital swat teams’ of USDS highlighted the urgency to become more agile as a whole enterprise:
and 18F are paired with public servants using agile software develop- “DOD doesn't have many effective ways to harness promising technolo-
ment methods to collaboratively work on high-priority projects, such gies they come up with. We need to fix that. I don't want us to lose out
as the digitization of the U.S. immigration service forms which are still on an innovative idea or capability we need because the Pentagon bu-
mostly paper-based, or the Department of Veterans' Affairs' education reaucracy was too slow to fund something, or we weren't amenable to
and health service delivery processes. working with as many startups as we could be.” (U.S. DoD, 2015).
In addition, the introduction of the Presidential Innovation Fellow pro- In addition to these first experiments, 18F has identified the need for
gram (The White House, 2015) - an HR instrument that allows “Tour of an increased knowledge and expertise among their federal clients to
Duty” appointments - are creating opportunities to move external talent change the government's IT acquisition practices. They are working to-
from the private sector into government for short periods of time to con- ward improving acquisition and contract officers ability to know what
duct specific tasks and then return to their previous positions. to do and questions to ask at their next acquisition negation with con-
Similar to the UK and soon the Italian government (Amazon.com, tractors (Christy, 2016). Contractors have to agree the open source ap-
2016; UK.gov, 2016), the U.S. federal government as explicitly adopted proaches, so that source code can be reused across the government.
an agile government approach in 2012 (The White House, 2012b,
2011). The Obama budget 2016 includes $106 million to “scale and in- 4. Building blocks of an agile innovation management approach
stitutionalize” the still-new U.S. Digital Service by creating similar agen-
cy-level digital teams within the largest 25 federal agencies. In some The agile innovation management framework as observed in the U.S.
pockets of the U.S. federal government, especially in defense and intel- federal government can be divided into two layers: the first layer – or
ligence agencies, agile methods have been tried and proven to be effec- the basis of the framework – includes foundational policies that need to
tive ways to improve software development processes. For example, the be adapted in order to shift once learned behavior and practices toward
U.S. Army has created simulation programs using both agile and tradi- an agile practice. The second layer is the management layer that includes
tional methods (Surdu & Parsons, 2006). The Federal Bureau of Investi- management activities focused on innovative processes, and leadership
gation (FBI) has worked with its contractor Lockheed Martin on the activities focused on providing cover for all the management activities.
Sentinel project to create a case management software to change how
the Bureau gathers, stores, and links data (Fulgham, Johnson, Crandall, 4.1. Base layer: policies
Jackson, & Burrows, 2011). Especially the upfront definition of require-
ments as part of the standard development process is considered as in- The base layer includes innovative HR policies. In the case of the U.S.
efficient and ineffective and oftentimes takes years (The White House, federal government only one major HR policy change was introduced
520 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523

during the eight-year presidency of President Obama. He created a new First, the process layer includes a strict application of agile methodol-
program that is called the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program (The ogies. An important first step is research. The client's real underlying
White House, 2015). Under the umbrella of this program, IT talents needs are researched using qualitative exploration methods with
were recruited “skilled in technology or innovative practices to serve focus groups, end-users, and agency staff to understand what products
in the Federal Government to work on some of the Nation's biggest or processes are actually needed. This user- or human-centered design
and most pressing challenges.” Among the recruits the Executive approach steps away from contract management requirements and
Order specified that executives, innovators, or successful entrepreneurs pushes the end-users of the projects into the focus. They define what
were asked to conduct a so-called “Tour of Duty” and spend short term products they need and which processes they will actually use. As
stay in the federal government in order to create “meaningful solutions Robert Read (2016), 18F co-founder and 18F consulting founder sug-
that can help save lives and taxpayer money, fuel job creation, and sig- gests, agile teams need to ask only open-ended questions rather than
nificantly improve how the Federal Government serves the American metric survey questions. The research team uses A/B testing, surveys
people.” These time-limited appointments are meant as an incentive of at most nine users, and in-person interviews. After that a prototype
to briefly serve the country and especially infuse the federal govern- is quickly built and as part of the first sprint cycle, developers and agen-
ment with skills and practices from the private sector. In practice, sever- cy partners improve the product iteratively and then test publicly in a
al of the PIFs (Presidential Innovation Fellows) extend their stays to so-called “moment-of-truth” phase. Lastly, the fully developed product
finish their projects beyond the initial six months' time period or even becomes operational for all end users.
moved into permanent positions in government. 18F teams up with other agencies using their five business lines: 1)
The second type of policies focuses on updated acquisition policies develop and build custom products for agencies, 2) develop innovative
that allow agencies to use agile methodologies when they write Request ways to buy technology, 3) provide platforms that departments and
for proposals from vendors. As Mark Schwartz, Chief Information Officer agencies can use, 4) consulting services to agencies to implement their
of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services publicly stated, it is im- own digital services teams, and 5) provide training in modern digital
portant for the government to “Buy competent teams, rather than buying services techniques. One support function is to provide contract writing
a product.” (Read, 2016). Using Agile BPAs (Blanket Purchase Agree- support. This so-called “RFP ghost-writing” advice helps agency-level
ments), vendors, who were already preapproved on the agencies sched- contract managers understand how to include agile methods into RFPs
ules, have to showcase prototypes of their final products and agree to and how to identify suitable vendors and contracts. In case agencies de-
deliver their products using agile methodologies with sprint cycles. cide to use 18F's services to build new software, inter-agency agree-
Agile BPAs were introduced using the Office of Management and Budget's ments are signed on a fee-for-service basis.
Modular Contracting Guidance (GAO, 2012; The White House, 2012a). At the top of the management layer, agile government leadership is
Under this framework the expectation is that government agencies invest necessary to provide so-called “air cover” for all activities from the
in smaller projects and increments and open opportunities for small busi- top. Beyond strategic planning activities, leadership is responsible for
nesses to compete for government contracts. This will reduce the risk ex- the integration of the digital services teams, software developers, and
posure and avoid sunk costs of “grand design” projects. agency-level staff. The expectation is to create hyper transparency in
order to promote values and processes, support policies, provide sup-
4.2. Management layer: process management and leadership port for teams to experiment with new methods, or outreach. Moreover,
leadership is necessary to protect the team culture and provide incen-
The management layer of the agile innovation management frame- tives for external IT talents. The following figure summarizes the policy
work includes process management and agile leadership – as the um- and management layer of the agile innovation management framework
brella to facilitate all other activities in the framework. (Fig. 3):

Fig. 3. Agile innovation management building blocks.

 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523 521

5. Discussion and future research and agile methodologies, however there is limited research that pays at-
tention to the actual implementation challenges, innovative outcomes,
Building on previous approaches, such as Janssen and van der Voort's or transformation of digital services in government. The following
(2016) suggestions for an adaptive government, agile innovation man- open research questions might help readers focus their own efforts to
agement can be considered as a value framework for the overall enter- contribute to the discipline and gain an understanding how govern-
prise of government. It goes beyond the project- or process-based ments can overcome their IT legacy problems, move away from stale
viewpoint and therefore needs to evolve around a set of principles that and risk-averse acquisition routines that might lead to delays in delivery
not only focus on the software development process. and push contractors to deliver over budget.
An agile innovation management framework needs to consider a se- Innovative agile acquisition practices: innovative acquisition practices
ries of agile innovation principles that have the potential to change how are a learning experience for both – IT contract managers in government
government acquires or creates IT innovation itself. The main principle as well as IT industry contractors. A recent congressional hearing
is open by default: software is developed and delivered once – either allowed lobbyist from the software development industry to state
with the help of contractors who agree to use agile development their concerns, that some contractors might be left behind who are
methods or built inhouse. The source code is then shared on social cod- not willing to offer agile methodologies or who are not willing to reveal
ing sites such as Github so that other government agencies don't need to their source code for proprietary reasons (Committee on Oversight and
replicate the efforts and a continuous improvement process contributes Government Reform, 2016). It is unclear at this point to what degree the
to the de-siloing of government (Dunleavy & Margetts, 2015; Mergel, contracting industry is impacted by changing requirements of govern-
2015). ment. Additional research is needed to understand a) how agile meth-
The second principle is the need for an agile leadership approach. odologies are changing the landscape of the IT software industry and
While scholars and practitioners might be dismissing the importance specifically vendors who have not offered agile methodologies so far,
of leadership and management in the design implementation of innova- and b) do these agile blanket purchasing agreements lead to cost sav-
tion, in risk-averse government environments no action is taken with- ings, more effective and efficient IT contracting practices, and are they
out explicit top-down confirmation. An agile leadership approach truly contributing to increased user- and client-centric outcomes?
(Ryan & Ali, 2016) helps to change deep seated attitudes, values, and The principle ‘open by default’ ties into the acquisition procedures
habits of the hierarchical bureaucracy. Leadership works toward cultur- that force contractors to make their code open source, as well as the
al changes that allow for open collaboration between contractors and sharing of software code (Crowston, Wei, Howison, & Wiggins, 2012).
internal development teams and changes the perception that the only Currently, in the U.S. case, the principles are followed, however there
safe approach to deliver is a complete plan. Agile leaders are responsible is no official policy. A draft policy document is circulating with the re-
for guiding a team to success even in situations where they are inexpe- quest for comments and the intention of the White House was publicly
rienced in agile methods and introduces the culture of prototyping and stated (Scott, 2016). So far there is little empirical evidence how open
experimentation using shortened timelines that help to deliver results source development can lead to sharing of resources or the reduction
faster. They also incorporate the possibilities to explore alternatives of double work in government. Just because the source code is open
and allow their teams to fail. The difference to risk-averse failing ap- does not necessarily mean that agencies also see the value in it
proaches is that failure in an experimental design approach occurs faster (Raymonds, 1999). Does sharing of software code as seen for example
and errors can be eliminated faster – not a year or two into the contract on Github (Mergel, 2015) truly lead to increased collaboration among
delivery timeline. This procedural innovation creates a cultural change agencies contributing to the improvement of each others' code, to the
from contract management to participatory and collaborative culture. actual reuse of already existing code, and subsequently to reduced
Agile leaders also have the ability to create an environment and the sup- spending of tax payer money? In addition, do existing open source pol-
port for motivated contributors to trust the process and motivate them icies lead to the expected change in acquisition procedures? Recently,
to participate (Fowler & Highsmith, 2001). the U.S. federal government even unpublished its source code for the
The third design principle includes alternative contracting and problematic HealthCare.gov website (Jeffreis, 2013). Do vendors – and
outsourcing approaches (GAO, 2013; USDS, 2015, 2016). Governments governments - comply with the policies? As an example, a recent Con-
are in the habit of ‘big designs up-front.’ This is especially true in the gressional Hearing of the Oversight Committee in the U.S. has shown
U.S. federal government that is driven by budget incentives as well as that the software industry is against open source development
existing rules and regulations. Firm fixed-price contracts are considered (Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 2016). How can
as the common contract type. Full specifications have to be agreed upon government incentivize open sharing of source code instead of
upfront, even though most contract managers have little knowledge of reinventing the wheel with every request for proposals, signed contract
IT specifications and actual users of the output are not included in the or grant? Some insights might be gleaned from other types of sharing
early design and specification phases. Contractors then need to deliver services outside the software development problem.
on the once agreed contract or suggest follow-up contracts. The benefits Another important effort focuses on scaling up practices and replicat-
of a comprehensive agile innovation management approach is that cli- ing lessons learned from the digital swat teams in the White House
ents, end users, contract managers, and contractors are included in the across the U.S. federal government. As Boehm and Turner (2005:30)
contract specification phase and leave enough room for adjustments point out: “on small, stand-alone projects agile practices are less bur-
as they go through the implementation and delivery phases. With con- densome and more in tune with the software industry's increasing
tinuous iterations, small failures are quickly corrected and will lead to need for rapid development and coping with continuous change,” how-
successful outcomes earlier (Dullemond, van Gameren, & van ever, they also observe the “difficulty scaling up and integrating them
Solingen, 2009). The result is that government can create teams of intra- into traditional, top-down systems”. Especially in government, where
preneurs or entrepreneurs (Schumpeter, 1949) who see government as organizations are expending 80% of their budget on maintaining legacy
a start-up opportunity by stepping away from the standard operating systems, it is unclear how agile innovation management practices can
procedures of IT innovation and acquisition. be scaled up from the project level to transforming overall digital ap-
proaches for each agency and government as a whole. It is important
6. Future research on agile innovation management in government to understand how open by default practices can be adopted and imple-
mented in the current environment that is still extremely risk averse.
Current research on agile innovation management in government is While there is evidence that projects that adhere to agile development
lacking in the information management literature. Most research that is concepts were nearly twice as likely to deliver on time than those that
contributed resides in the computer science field and focuses on scrum used the traditional “waterfall” development technique, it is still a
522 I. Mergel / Government Information Quarterly 33 (2016) 516–523

show-and-tell effort to convince agency leadership and especially IT former President might not survive the transition. Future research
contracting managers to buy into the concepts. Future research can needs to address how the electoral cycle and shifting national priorities
focus on diffusion of agile practices, but also on comparative studies to affect the adoption of agile methodologies, how commitment to innova-
highlight the differences between a traditional contracting approach tion management persists, and whether risk-taking with government
and an agile innovation management approach. technology decisions led to sustainable changes, such as the enactment
The main challenge for government is the cultural change that needs of acquisition policies and innovative HR policies.
to go hand-in-hand with the procedural changes. The current notion of Overall, agile innovation management is an approach that many dif-
‘small vs. big government’ has shifted budget categories toward ferent countries are attempting – with some governments in advanced
contracting out and led to a reduction in IT talent that is located in gov- stages, others in early experimentation stage. Most of the topics listed
ernment. Instead, contractors' and vendors' knowledge is moved from above are either not researched or in isolation. It is therefore important
the outside of the organization into government on a temporary basis, for e-government and digital innovation researchers to conduct coun-
but is again removed after a contract ends. How can government attract try-level studies, project studies, as well as human resources studies to
IT talent from the private sector to serve? This is an important question increase our understanding agile innovation management.
given the gap in salaries paid by the private sector and the limits to pay
out bonuses or create flexible salary schemes. Once recruited,
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Dr. Ines Mergel is full professor of public administration at the University of Konstanz,
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Germany, where she teaches classes on government innovation management. Professor
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Mergel received a Doctor of Business Administration and spent six years as a postdoctoral
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fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. From 2008 to 2016, she taught in the
change and the entrepreneur. In R. V. (Ed.), Essays on entrepreneurs, innovations, busi-
Master of Public Administration Program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citi-
ness cycles, and the evolution of capitalism.
zenship and Public Affairs. Her research focuses on technology management innovations
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mostly in the U.S. federal government.
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