Keeping AGILE from becoming FRAGILE

[NOTE: I have worked on several Department of Education (DoEd) initiatives in my career including the FAFSA student experience.]

In 2016 my team and I spent the year working with the Department of Education (DoEd) on reimagining an Office of Migrant Education (OME) initiative using Human-Centered Design (HCD) and agile methodologies. It was the first time this particular department had used HCD and agile and after some bumpy and not-so-bumpy sprints, we were able to roll out a new digital tool for several hundred state workers to (thankfully) very quiet fanfare. Unfortunately, it seems the newly streamlined Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) experience hasn’t been so lucky.

Knowing what I know about the OME project and the FAFSA process, as well as what it’s like to help government agencies transition from waterfall — the traditional process where a product is only shared when it’s finished — to agile — a process with multiple iterations — it pains me to watch what has been occurring with the “soft launch” of DoEd’s new FAFSA application. So I wanted to highlight seven key learnings from my experiences with agile and digital transformation at DoEd.

1. Agile is not a panacea. Nor a one-size-fits-all. It doesn’t magically fix people-process-product issues. It’s ok — even preferred — to tweak agile processes to fit somewhere between “textbook agile” and traditional waterfall (aka “NIAGARA-GILE”) in digital delivery for government.
2. Design and development can be managed differently. Again, it’s ok to mix it up and utilize Kanban for design, and scrum for engineering, for example. The goal is always to use the optimal project management framework for each part of the process, not identical approaches at all costs.
3. Plan to spend more time than originally expected. A lot more. Because of the extensive number of user types, rules, paths and exceptions, plan on adding more time to each part of the process including additional research and user testing. Unlike Silicon Valley, it’s far better in government to go slower, iterate and get it right than move fast and break things.
4. Plan your pilots carefully. Piloting software as a beta or “soft launch” is pretty common in the private sector. However, in government at no point should the original application be decommissioned or otherwise inaccessible while the pilot is happening, especially for mission critical applications, which is most of what government agencies provide.
5. Build in pilot escape routes. It’s imperative that the team designs a way to allow users to move from the pilot quickly back to the legacy application if they get stuck or have other issues while using the pilot. 
6. Complex, rules-engine heavy applications like FAFSA require a lot more than traditional website rollout approaches. This includes significant system and flow mappings, multiple test cycles, extensive error handling, prioritized 508 accessibility approaches and deeply complex rules engine development. This requires staffing multi-disciplinary teams, each of which brings deep institutional knowledge and additional considerations. Partnerships are key.
7. Over-communicate with everyone. Your development teams, your stakeholders, your agency partners, the public…the more they understand what’s going on, the better. Your teams and stakeholders will be able to more quickly fix issues if they’re aware of what’s happening and agency partners and the user base (i.e., the public) will be able to plan for the unexpected. 

The stress today’s high school students are under is immense, and for many families, a functional FAFSA application process can be the difference between going to college or not. I am hopeful that the FAFSA process will get resolved in a timely fashion and while I commend DoEd for trying to streamline 108 questions to 36, hoping for an issue-free “soft launch” can often be a hard task.

Emily Ryan has worked cross-functionally as a designer, full-stack developer and UX researcher to solve a variety of digital issues for public and private sector spaces, focusing on civic tech. She’s worked across start-ups, federal government and consulting agencies. She holds a BFA in Design, an M.A. in Criminal Law and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Government, focusing on technology’s influences and impacts on global democratic movements and free and open elections. In her free time she runs ultramarathons and travels, preferring locations with traditional European holiday markets, walking food tours and modern art exhibits.

Image by Victoria Heath on Unsplash