Why the Product Owner holds the key to public sector and government Agile development success - and how to find or be a great one.
Agile development experts Unboxed Consulting have launched a new White Paper on the effective use of Agile methodology in the Public Sector. The Paper demonstrates that Agile can still work beautifully under tough Public Sector circumstances, resulting in stellar efficiencies of cost and time - but that finding the right Product Owner is critical to its success.
Unboxed Consulting White Paper recognises both the formidable challenges to the adoption of Agile by government departments and the exceptional opportunities it offers, before exploring why the Product Owner is ultimately the key to its success. Given the right Product Owner, Agile has the potential to transform software development - even in the alien and hostile landscape of the Public Sector - dramatically slashing costs, timescales and risk.
There are dozens of reasons why Agile shouldn't work in the Public Sector, but none of these is a deal-breaker with a strong Product Owner. Better still, if managers learn how to find (or become) a great Product Owner then the development team will beg to work with them on the next project. Unboxed Consulting describe the characteristics of a star Product Owner, and the environment needed to enable them to do their job.
Two case studies - the e-petitions website for the Government Digital Service and an API for the 2011 Census data in partnership with the Office of National Statistics - show that Agile can bring remarkable benefits to the Public Sector, and explain why it's slowly gaining ground over the predominant Waterfall methodology.
"Agile made e-petitions the success story it is. At 3p/signature (and reducing all the time), it's hugely cost effective." Peter Herlihy, Product Owner of e-petitions, GDS
"We take your most exciting and complex digital ideas and turn them into reality. As Agile and Ruby on Rails veterans, our Unboxed Way is specifically designed to start delivering business benefits immediately. And it's so well respected, we teach other companies how to use it to leverage Agile for themselves."
