In my prior post about the US Administration for Children and Families (ACF), I focused on “ACF Tech,” the dedicated professionals who work behind the scenes to enable ACF’s critical technical operations. In this post, I will explore how the ACF Tech team is revolutionizing their approach to project management, services delivery, and strategic planning by embracing agile methodologies.
We drafted the ACF Tech Strategic Plan nearly a year ago and in doing so, made sure that each division within the team articulated and committed to their own strategic initiatives that helped to support the overall mission of ACF Tech and by extension, the ACF mission. These planned initiatives became the backlog of critical work across the team, requiring regular feedback and updates, the removal of blockers, and team-wide visibility with frequent shared updates to help maintain progress. The team decided to take a cue from the application development teams who incorporated agile into their work as a way of keeping team-wide activities in alignment and marching toward completion.
ACF Tech’s journey into agile practices marks a pivotal shift in how they manage and deliver projects and services. The adoption of agile tools and techniques is not just a technical upgrade, but a cultural transformation aligning with their strategic goals. To enable this transformation was the integration of Jira, a popular, relatively sophisticated agile project management tool. Jira has enabled ACF Tech to meticulously manage their backlog of deliverables, ensuring that each strategic initiative deliverable aligns with the agency’s mission-critical objectives.
Another innovative approach ACF Tech has adopted in leveraging Jira is the use of story points. This agile metric offers a more nuanced understanding of the effort and resources required for each task. This approach coincides with the team’s regular stand-up meetings, helping to foster a culture of transparency and continuous feedback, crucial for agile environments. In these sessions, progress is shared, obstacles are addressed, and support is mobilized, ensuring that all team members are aligned with the agency’s objectives. By tracking story points, ACF Tech gains valuable insights into workload distribution and project complexity, enabling more accurate planning and resource allocation. Through these practices, ACF Tech not only will track progress in a dynamic and adaptive manner but also ensure that both qualitative and quantitative measures are employed to assess the achievement of strategic goals.
The integration of agile methodologies at ACF Tech has had a profound impact on the agency’s capacity to fulfill its mission. With more efficient project management, better services delivery, enhanced visibility into the progress and challenges of various initiatives, and improved team collaboration, ACF Tech is better equipped to deliver high-quality services to children and families.
The journey of ACF Tech towards agile methodologies is more than a technical shift; it represents a commitment to continuous improvement, innovation, and a responsive approach to serving the needs of children and families. As they continue to refine their practices, ACF Tech sets a precedent for other government agencies looking to modernize their operations and amplify their impact. Stay tuned for more updates on ACF Tech’s journey and their ongoing efforts to transform child welfare services through technological and methodological innovation.
Todd Hager is Vice President of Strategic Advisory for Macro Solutions, providing leadership in strategy, innovation, modernization, and team enablement. His work has been instrumental within HHS starting with the COVID response, working closely with the HHS, ACF, and ARPA-H CIOs to plan for and modernize the infrastructure and teams, while helping to develop agile, “service-forward” orientations within and between teams. Todd is the Industry Chair for the ACT-IAC Emerging Technology Community of Interest (COI) and is a 2021 Federal 100 Award winner. He is a certified PMP, a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), ITIL v3 certified and CMMI v2 certified.
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