Agile Business Change Blog Thoughts on Agile Strategic Business Change and Agile Delivery

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This week’s Economist includes an interesting article on the US army’s new Agile process. According to the Magazine the army technology acquisitions are “often hampered by long budgeting cycles and byzantine contracting procedures”, which result in military communications systems that lag behind those in the commercial world. This, of course, may sound familiar to anyone involved in government procurement in the UK.

One example cited was of an order for a rugged smartphone, which was “postponed when officials realised that it was heavier, more expensive and not noticeably better than something that could be bought off the shelf”.

The “new” idea is to bring products in from the private sector and allow the users (soldiers) to test them out in near real-world training scenarios. Successful systems can be fast-tracked through procurement or, in the case of unsuccessful trials, the experience gained can be used to refine the requirements.

Ultimately acquisitions should be “faster, fewer and shrewder”.  Maybe it’s something that will catch on here.