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How we measure the success of coaching engagements
on December 10, 2024
We use tried and true techniques to demonstrate how we're serving the American public.
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Three ways to write fearless spreadsheet formulas
on November 5, 2024
Spreadsheets are the world's most popular programming environment — and the most feared. But what if spreadsheet formulas were easy to read and change without fear? Learn how a few simple principles can make your spreadsheets a joy to work with.
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Am I doing it right? A check up for agile teams
on March 23, 2023
Even on the best teams, things need to be monitored and adjusted. If you are doing this for the first time, it can be even harder. In this article, I share some signals of what success looks like and what to do if you are stuck in one of the many common pitfalls.
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Senior executives part 5: Use stories as leading indicators
on August 25, 2022
Executives often rely on productivity metrics to measure success, but these measures can obscure whether the software is actually working for users. Stories are a better resource to build a strategy between a senior executive and a product team. This is part five in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 4: Initiate more direct interaction to build rapport
on August 18, 2022
It’s critical that senior executives and product teams make small decisions over time about important technology initiatives to be able to adjust plans as things change. How does that work? What works well? This is part four in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 3: Use short-term initiatives to build confidence in long-term decisions
on August 11, 2022
Deadlines often force executives to make long-term decisions about technology without certainty it’ll be successful. Modern software development strategies help reduce this risk by leveraging a product team to incrementally test software upfront. This is part three in a series on how senior executive and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives part 2: Work outside the traditional hierarchy to set up an initiative for success
on August 2, 2022
In order to ultimately succeed at delivering human-centered software, two critical groups need to work closely together: the product team and a champions group. This is part two in a series on how senior executives and tech teams can be better allies.
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Senior executives are the allies tech teams need, part 1
on July 20, 2022
Successfully delivering software in government requires people to work differently. Without clear answers for how to do this, well-intentioned executives and teams default to existing processes that risk undermining their own success. This is part one in a series on how to evolve that relationship.
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An Acquisition Retrospective
on March 18, 2020
The Centers of Excellence and 18F worked together with the General Services Administration’s Region 1 Assisted Acquisition Services to create the Discovery BPA, which allows the Centers of Excellence to quickly staff the industry side of the their teams embedded at agency partners.
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Becoming a product manager
on November 21, 2019
If you had asked me two years ago what a product manager is, I wouldn’t have known. And, yet, today, that is one of my titles. Along the way, I have been lucky to receive guidance and coaching from experienced product managers at the General Services Administration’s 18F.
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Moving a legacy Microsoft environment to the Azure cloud
on February 1, 2018
Securely connecting Azure with an on-premises server environment provides the benefits of a modern, cloud infrastructure, while making it trivial for application developers to interface with an on-premises legacy environment.
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Managing custom software development in government when you're not a software engineer
on September 20, 2017
As custom software development becomes integral to accomplishing any program’s mission, many managers in government find themselves faced with handling the unfamiliar: overseeing the design and implementation of a digital product that is functional and user-friendly.
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Announcing the Digital Acquisition Accelerator Playbook
on October 12, 2016
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.
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Mississippi brings agile and modular techniques to child welfare system contract
on September 20, 2016
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.
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Buying better digital products part 2: Setting the product vision and strategy
on July 26, 2016
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.
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Buying better digital products part 1: Proto-personas and understanding the problem
on July 21, 2016
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.
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Building a modern shared authentication platform
on May 10, 2016
18F is working iteratively with a team of technologists from across the government to build a platform for users who need to log in to government services. Every consumer-facing service the government offers will benefit from this platform, enhancing the privacy and security of online interactions for the public and for agencies.
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How we get high availability with Elasticsearch and Ruby on Rails
on April 8, 2016
If you’re already using Ruby on Rails and Elasticsearch, check out our replacement Rake tasks for the Elasticsearch Rails gem.
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Preventing technical debt
on October 22, 2015
In the final part of our series on technical debt, we talk about ways to minimize accumulating bad or unnecessary technical debt in the first place.
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Layering innovation
on May 8, 2015
At 18F, we're changing the way government thinks about software, all the way to provisioning and deployment. To do that, we implemented an open source platform as a service for our developers. Here’s a look at how we created it.
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An open source tool for easier database testing
on January 13, 2015
18F is dedicated to spreading modern software techniques like rigorous automated testing throughout the federal government; we want to showcase how solid testing enables rapid, high-quality development. When the product is based on a large relational database, this poses a dilemma: the full production dataset is too unwieldy to duplicate to the test and development environments.
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Why we use HTTPS for every .gov we make
on November 13, 2014
18F uses HTTPS in every .gov website we make, so that our users have a fast, secure, private connection.
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The encasement strategy: on legacy systems and the importance of APIs
on September 8, 2014
In 1986 a nuclear reactor known as Chernobyl released harmful radioactivity which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe. The core of this reactor remains a glowing, ineradicable mass of deadly radioactive lava in the middle of a large Exclusion Zone unfit for human habitation.
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Hello, world! We are 18F
on March 19, 2014
18F is a startup within GSA, encompassing the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and a cutting edge digital delivery team. We’re doers, recruited from the most innovative corners of industry and the public sector, who are passionate about “hacking” bureaucracy to drive efficiency, transparency, and savings for government agencies and the American people.
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