REI Systems was recently featured in Federal News Radio for expertise commentary on agile procurement. The article, “Understanding why agencies should use agile and avoiding common mistakes,” draws from REI’s white paper on Agile Acquisition and Contracting In Government. Below is an excerpt from the article.

Many government procurement officials are nervous about contracts to purchase agile software and IT solutions, perhaps for good reason. It’s hard to feel comfortable buying something when you aren’t sure what the final deliverables will be.

However, according to Office of Management and Budget PortfolioStat briefings, most federal agencies report that more than half of their IT development efforts use agile today. The benefits of agile development are powerful; an effective agile approach brings innovation as development takes place, moves more quickly than other approaches, and rarely produces a solution that an agency finally rejects and discards.

Thus, learning how best to procure services from vendors who use an agile approach is important. It is critical now and will only continue to grow increasingly important in the coming years, so how do we make sure that federal agencies and departments are properly procuring agile services? And going one step further, can they use agile methods as they procure?

Read the full article on Federal News Radio or read REI’s white paper for more details.