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July 26, 2018
What we learned from building a pool of agile vendors
In 2015, 18F had an idea for a better way for federal agencies to hire private vendors to build products and services using agile development techniques. We wanted to see what would happen if we used an existing government process (called a blanket purchase agreement) and tailored it to the needs of agencies looking to update their digital services.Continue reading about What we learned from building a pool of agile vendors
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July 17, 2018
Five contracting tweaks that have yielded 18F better procurements (thus far)
Here are five procurement hacks — both in the context of our Agile Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) and in general — that we’ve made in the past few years to make the procurement process a bit more joyful and effective.Continue reading about Five contracting tweaks that have yielded 18F better procurements (thus far)
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May 22, 2018
Using agile methods to improve the RFP process
The process of developing and issuing RFPs is often viewed as a one off - a special activity that occurs infrequently and in isolation. What if we applied the principles of iteration and continuous improvement to the way that RFPs are developed?Continue reading about Using agile methods to improve the RFP process
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March 13, 2018
Win big by going small
Adopting this “smaller is better” mindset as a way to overhaul a large, complex legacy system can feel counterintuitive. But the notion of smallness — of distilling complex, interdependent tasks into achievable units of work — is fundamental to building modern software in both the private and public sector. -
January 30, 2018
Getting prepared to prototype
In product development, we often use prototypes to understand user needs and reduce risk. Prototypes are a great way to test out ideas or approaches before you actually commit to building anything, but governments are not always set up to develop and use prototypes efficiently before building digital services. -
November 30, 2017
Improving government outcomes through an agile contract format
The way government is writing contracts is wasting time, handcuffing industry, and preventing programs from meeting mission mandates. There’s a better way through an Agile Contract Format.Continue reading about Improving government outcomes through an agile contract format
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October 11, 2017
Pulling back the curtain on IT procurement
Monolithic procurement — large, complex, multi-year contracts, which are common in government IT procurement — can appear compelling to agencies that use them. The Technology Transformation Services (TTS) is a strong advocate for an alternative approach known as modular contracting (aka modular procurement).Continue reading about Pulling back the curtain on IT procurement
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September 18, 2017
A day in the life of an 18F product owner
The Technology Transformation Services (TTS) has been working with the Forest Service in an effort to move their permitting process online. We’ve previously written about how doing this work in the open can benefit other agencies with permit systems. In this post, we’ll focus on why it’s important to have a product owner, what that looks like from the Forest Service’s perspective, and why a product owner is critical to successful projects.Continue reading about A day in the life of an 18F product owner
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September 12, 2017
How Alaska is using transparency to attract modern software vendors
Alaska’s Department of Health & Social Services is working with the Technology Transformation Services’ Office of Acquisition on a new approach to product and acquisition management to develop a modern, integrated eligibility system for their Division of Public Assistance. We’re experimenting with a transparent approach so that anyone can see, and provide public feedback on, our progress.Continue reading about How Alaska is using transparency to attract modern software vendors
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September 8, 2017
Forest Service: Six months in, checking our assumptions
The Technology Transformation Services has been working with the Forest Service in an effort to move their permitting process online. In this post, we’ll focus on how taking a step back to check your assumptions can reduce the risk that your project will go off course.Continue reading about Forest Service: Six months in, checking our assumptions
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August 30, 2017
What makes a great vendor team for acquisition product development?
From our experience with the Agile Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA), we’ve found that in order to build effective cross-functional teams and successful IT projects, we need alignment on several principlesContinue reading about What makes a great vendor team for acquisition product development?
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June 22, 2017
Why discovery research matters for modular procurement
The Technology Transformation Service (TTS) has been working with the Forest Service since August 2016 on what will eventually be an agency-wide system to process permit applications. TTS is primarily helping the Forest Service hire private vendors for this work, rather than building it ourselves, and one way we’re improving that process is through “discovery research.”Continue reading about Why discovery research matters for modular procurement
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March 15, 2017
One agency’s investments in open source mean others benefit
One of the advantages to working across government is that we often have opportunities to share insights from other projects, repurpose code, and connect otherwise disjointed efforts. This happens in direct work with our partners, but also on our blog and in our GitHub repository. Our code, guides, and other work are all free for other government agencies and the public to use for their benefit (and we love when people do).Continue reading about One agency’s investments in open source mean others benefit
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February 27, 2017
To get things done, you need great, secure tools
To folks new to government, one of the most surprising differences between our work and work in the private sector are the barriers in accessing commercially available software, and commercially available Software as a Service (SaaS) in particular. There are many good reasons for these barriers but digital teams need great tools to get work done and compliance requires tradeoffs associated with time to initial delivery and accommodation of constraints that are different from the private sector.Continue reading about To get things done, you need great, secure tools
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January 10, 2017
Mark Hopson: Negotiating on America’s behalf
Mark Hopson joined 18F in January, 2016 after working as a Contracting Officer at the Census Bureau. He works for the TTS Office of Acquisitions on call orders for the Agile BPA, procurement strategy, and other projects that are helping advance the way that government buys technology.Continue reading about Mark Hopson: Negotiating on America’s behalf
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January 5, 2017
Building an effective agile partnership between government and industry
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor has been with 18F at the forefront of digital transformation and has been an outstanding early adopter. One of our latest initiatives has been an Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement (Agile BPA) Task Order to create the initial version of a web application tool for the Section 14(c) certificate application process.Continue reading about Building an effective agile partnership between government and industry
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December 13, 2016
Lowering the risk of experimentation with open source code
In September, Singapore launched the govBuy Marketplace, adapted from the Technology Transformation Service’s (TTS) Micro-Purchase Marketplace. Both sites are an auction platform designed to connect government teams to small businesses ready to solve small technical problems using open source code. The code that powers both platforms is also open source.Continue reading about Lowering the risk of experimentation with open source code
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November 17, 2016
Leadership and innovation at California's Child Welfare Services
This is the story of how the State of California changed direction on a $500 million IT project for Child Welfare Services. To a large degree it’s about technology. But it‘s also about leadership, changing frames for assessing risk, and relationships based on trust.Continue reading about Leadership and innovation at California's Child Welfare Services
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November 15, 2016
Modular procurement resources for state and local government
Our recent work with state government agencies in California and Mississippi provides some powerful examples of how 18F’s commitment to working and learning in the open can provide enormous benefits — even to states that are not yet working directly with 18F.Continue reading about Modular procurement resources for state and local government
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October 28, 2016
California takes a new approach to procurement
The Technology Transformation Service recently held an industry day to talk to the private sector community about our vision, our projects, and how GSA and vendors can work together to bring modern digital services to the federal government. For that event, California’s Stuart Drown recorded a short video talking about 18F’s work with California on their Child Welfare System.Continue reading about California takes a new approach to procurement
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October 12, 2016
Announcing the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Playbook
Built on the lessons learned during the pilot phase of the Digital Acquisitions Accelerator, the accompanying playbook examines the current acquisition landscape and provides an approach to procuring custom software solutions. Our goal is to make the government a smarter and more informed buyer of digital products and services.Continue reading about Announcing the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Playbook
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October 3, 2016
Using RFPs to make every dollar count
We were thrilled to be invited to help National Endowment for the Arts and even more thrilled that we could help them succeed in a way that prevented years of back-and-forth exchanges and many millions of dollars spent. Instead, they invested $30,000 and a couple months to build the Bright Spots interactive graphic.Continue reading about Using RFPs to make every dollar count
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September 20, 2016
Mississippi brings agile and modular techniques to child welfare system contract
The State of Mississippi is about to upgrade its child welfare management system, a system used by about 1,800 state employees in 82 counties, supporting the wellbeing of about 5,000 children across the state. The system was built in the early 2000s, and the employees who use it are stymied by an inefficient interface and aging infrastructure. -
August 9, 2016
The role of bot-bidding in Micro-purchase auctions
The 18F Micro-purchase team recently introduced the ability to bid on an auction via API. This feature is part of our long-standing commitment to experiment and iterate towards the easiest bidding process for vendors. Like everything in the platform, we treated this feature as an experiment to learn how it would affect bidding behavior and the final price of auctions. Here’s what we learned.Continue reading about The role of bot-bidding in Micro-purchase auctions
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August 4, 2016
Buying better digital products part 3: Mapping user stories
The Digital Acquisition Accelerator, a program run by the Presidential Innovation Fellows and 18F, launched in early June. Through this program, cross-functional teams from two agencies — the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — are learning to build two products each using modern product management practices. During week two of the Accelerator, the teams applied what they learned in an inception workshop. This is the third in a series of three blog posts that describe the step-by-step process of the workshop.Continue reading about Buying better digital products part 3: Mapping user stories
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July 26, 2016
Buying better digital products part 2: Setting the product vision and strategy
This is the second in a series of three blog posts that provide a step-by-step guide to how we led the inception workshop. -
July 21, 2016
Buying better digital products part 1: Proto-personas and understanding the problem
Recently, 18F launched the Digital Acquisition Accelerator, a 6-8 month program aimed at creating change agents within two agencies to inspire a cultural shift within those agencies. This is the first in a series of three blog posts that provide a step-by-step guide to how we led the inception workshop. -
July 13, 2016
3 ways for digital acquisition teams to work better
As we work through this pilot phase of the Digital Acquisition Accelerator, we’ll be sharing our work and the lessons we learn. We hope this will help other interested teams follow along and also give the public on opportunity to give us feedback on our pilot. Here are three techniques that our team practiced with the FBI and Treasury teams during the recent kickoff of the pilot.Continue reading about 3 ways for digital acquisition teams to work better
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July 7, 2016
When a micro-purchase doesn’t work out, we try to learn from it
Two months ago, the 18F acquisitions team ran a public micro-purchase auction to find a vendor to develop a small new feature for 18F's cloud.gov, and for the first time after several successful micro-purchases for other products, the contracted vendor didn’t deliver the code on time. This was very interesting to us we’re early in the life of the micro-purchase platform, and we believe that failure is a great way to learn. In the spirit of experimentation and sharing our lessons, here’s how we went about analyzing this, and here’s what we learned.Continue reading about When a micro-purchase doesn’t work out, we try to learn from it
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June 15, 2016
Two agencies participating in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator pilot
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury are the first two agencies to participate in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Pilot.Continue reading about Two agencies participating in the Digital Acquisition Accelerator pilot
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May 2, 2016
From spreadsheet to API to app: A better contract forecasting tool
Executive branch agencies of the federal government are required by law to tell vendors if and when they plan on making purchases. The General Services Administration (GSA) was forecasting using a crowded spreadsheet containing dozens of columns and hundreds of rows. 18F helped create a new, open-source tool to display contract forecasting opportunities.Continue reading about From spreadsheet to API to app: A better contract forecasting tool
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March 22, 2016
From 1,500 pages to 10: Helping California buy a new Child Welfare System
Through a partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services, 18F was able to work with California’s Department of Social Services and Office of Systems Integration on the replacement of California's Child Welfare System. We helped them simplify the contracting documents and incorporate modular contracting, agile development, user-centered design, and open source practices into their project.Continue reading about From 1,500 pages to 10: Helping California buy a new Child Welfare System
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March 10, 2016
Announcing the launch of the Digital Acquisitions Pilot
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released a memorandum today that encourages agencies across the federal government to pursue innovative approaches to acquiring goods and services. Given the growing importance of digital acquisitions, OFPP is also launching a Digital Acquisitions Pilot along with the memo.Continue reading about Announcing the launch of the Digital Acquisitions Pilot
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February 19, 2016
How and why we built the micro-purchase bidding platform
This past December, 18F launched a micro-purchase platform to enable vendors to place bids on opportunities to deliver open source code that costs $3,500 or less. This is a look at how and why we built this platform.Continue reading about How and why we built the micro-purchase bidding platform
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January 15, 2016
Micro-purchase auctions round 2: What we learned
The auctions have closed, the bids are in, the winners are off coding, and some already have been paid. Let’s look at some early lessons from our latest round of micro-purchase auctions.Continue reading about Micro-purchase auctions round 2: What we learned
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January 7, 2016
Announcing the 18F Micro-purchase Platform
In October 2015, 18F launched an experiment in micro-purchasing. Given both vendor and government interest in continuing this task, 18F is happy to announce the launch of a new platform for posting and bidding on micro-purchase tasks.Continue reading about Announcing the 18F Micro-purchase Platform
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December 23, 2015
We asked everyone at 18F to reflect on the most meaningful project they worked on this year
2015 was a big year for 18F. We almost doubled in size, worked with 28 different agency partners, and released products ranging from Design Method Cards to cloud.gov. Internally, we improved onboarding and our documentation by releasing guides on topics as diverse as content, accessibility, and creating good open source projects. To mark the end of the year, we reached out to everyone at 18F and asked them to reflect on a meaningful project they worked on this year. -
December 17, 2015
The Agile BPA is ready to launch
Today, we're pleased to officially say that Pool Three of the Agile BPA is ready to launch. Although we announced the awardees earlier this year, there were multiple protests related to the Agile BPA. Last night, we learned that the final protest has been resolved. -
November 19, 2015
New playbook details what it's like to work with 18F Delivery
If you or your agency have thought about working with 18F but are unsure of how we work with our partners, we have a new set of guidelines to help you out. The 18F Delivery Partnership Playbook is specifically targeted at federal offices interested in working with 18F to build digital services.Continue reading about New playbook details what it's like to work with 18F Delivery
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November 18, 2015
The current future of 18F marketplaces
In August, we announced the Full-stack Development Pool vendors for the Agile Delivery Services Marketplace. As we continue to work on the alpha version of this marketplace, we're beginning to plan out additional micro-markets as well.Continue reading about The current future of 18F marketplaces
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November 10, 2015
How the City of Boston is using GSA’s CALC tool
We hoped CALC, a powerful labor category and pricing research tool from GSA and 18F, would save federal contracting officers time and money. Turns out, it’s also saving cities time and money. In August, we found out the City of Boston has been using CALC to vet pricing they receive in response to a request for proposals.Continue reading about How the City of Boston is using GSA’s CALC tool
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November 6, 2015
Early lessons from the micro-purchase experiment
Well, we sure didn’t expect this. But the winning bid for the first iteration of the 18F micro-purchase experiment was $1. And on Wednesday, the winner delivered a solution that passed our acceptance criteria.Continue reading about Early lessons from the micro-purchase experiment
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October 26, 2015
Announcing the criteria for 18F's first micro-purchase contract
Today, we're beginning our micro-purchase experiment. Here are the details of what we are looking for and our acceptance criteria for the final submission.Continue reading about Announcing the criteria for 18F's first micro-purchase contract
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October 13, 2015
Open Source Micro-purchasing: An experiment in federal acquisition
In the next few weeks, we're going to use our micro-purchase authority to run an experiment to contract for open source contributions to our active projects.Continue reading about Open Source Micro-purchasing: An experiment in federal acquisition
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August 28, 2015
Announcing the Agile BPA awards: A conversation about the process
As the first Agile BPA awards are now being issued, we asked three members of the team about the process and the lessons they’ve learned so far.Continue reading about Announcing the Agile BPA awards: A conversation about the process
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June 15, 2015
The Agile Delivery BPA is here!
The Request for Quotation (RFQ) for the Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement (Agile Delivery BPA) is hitting the street on Wednesday, June 17, 2015. -
June 9, 2015
How DATA Act implementation is opening up federal spending
In May 2014, President Obama signed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) into law. Once implemented, the DATA Act will make it easier to understand how the federal government spends money.Continue reading about How DATA Act implementation is opening up federal spending
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May 12, 2015
Announcing the CALC tool: Making pricing research easier in federal procurement
Today, 18F and the General Services Administration (GSA) launched a powerful new labor category and pricing research tool to help the federal contracting community make smarter, faster buying decisions. -
April 23, 2015
Coming soon: the agile delivery services solicitation
Calling all agile vendors...get ready! By the end of this month, GSA will be releasing a Request for Quote (RFQ) for the alpha version of the Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase AgreementContinue reading about Coming soon: the agile delivery services solicitation
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March 30, 2015
New RFP ghostwriting service to improve contract success
A poorly written RFP will expose you to such risks as overbidding to compensate for uncertainty, vendor lock-in, and catastrophic failure due to miscommunication and misunderstanding. You don’t want that. The taxpaying public doesn’t want that. And neither does 18F.Continue reading about New RFP ghostwriting service to improve contract success
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March 20, 2015
One year in and looking forward
One year ago we said, 'Hello, World' and launched not only a new team, but also the promise of a new way of working with and for the Federal Government. Here's what we've accomplished so far. -
March 10, 2015
Labor category descriptions for agile procurements
Clients of 18F Consulting frequently ask for help defining labor categories for agile contracts. We’ve published these definitions in a public GitHub repo so other acquisition professionals can benefit from them, too. Read on for more details.Continue reading about Labor category descriptions for agile procurements
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March 4, 2015
Announcing OASIS Discovery: making market research easier
18F is glad to announce the beta release of a new procurement tool, Discovery. Discovery will allow federal acquisition personnel to conduct initial market research more easily and quickly - allowing users to discover and research vendors offering work across a number of professional service categories.Continue reading about Announcing OASIS Discovery: making market research easier
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February 12, 2015
Highlights from the Agile Delivery Services Industry Day events
18F and GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS) held a pair of events for our upcoming Agile Delivery Services blanket purchase agreement (BPA). Over 700 people registered for the events, showing just how much interest there is from the private sector in this new BPA.Continue reading about Highlights from the Agile Delivery Services Industry Day events
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January 8, 2015
Creating a federal marketplace for agile delivery services
The federal government and industry community have been talking about the need for software acquisitions to keep pace with technology cycles — typically 1-3 years. In today’s dynamic environment, however, not even that is fast enough.Continue reading about Creating a federal marketplace for agile delivery services
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November 26, 2014
How to use more open source in your next federal IT acquisition
The history of open source software is a record of steadily turning tremendously expensive custom-built solutions into freely available infrastructure that you can simply take for granted. What once were astoundingly sophisticated, expensive human endeavors have become open source tools you can drop into place in your project on a whim.Continue reading about How to use more open source in your next federal IT acquisition
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March 31, 2014
Announcing FBOpen: Government opportunities made easier
Today we're announcing our first product launch: FBOpen, a set of open-source tools to help small businesses search for opportunities to work with the U.S. government.Continue reading about Announcing FBOpen: Government opportunities made easier
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