How Decentralized Decision Making Can Help Federal Agencies Adopt a More Agile Practice

Introduction:

The use of Agile methodology has grown exponentially in federal project management over the years. However, the transition has been a bumpy one. The public sector process and Agile methodology have different approaches when it comes to project management. Of course, this is understandable as there are many needs for a clear chain of command in Federal agencies.

However, the primary challenge to adopting Agile at Federal agencies comes down to one factor: trust in decision making. While federal procurement is designed to promote good stewardship of taxpayer funds through heavy oversight, the Agile process requires substantial trust in its method which prioritizes collaboration between customers and clients. Agile becomes stifled under the stringent conditions outlined by federal acquisition regulations. How do we bridge the gap between the rules-driven, centralized public sector and the more flexible, fast-moving Agile process?

The Challenge: Does Every Decision Need to Come from the Top of the Chain?

Centralized decisions, meaning all decisions are made by one central source, are important for far-reaching, large scale, changes that will affect multiple teams across the organization. However, when every decision must be centralized, the disadvantage becomes lack of efficiency.

Currently, for many Federal IT projects maintain a centralized decision-making process, meaning a lot of management decisions need to escalate to a higher authority, which causes major delays and elongates wait time between approvals. This lag affects quality and speed as the decision-makers are often not informed of the practical challenges faced by the teams on a day-to-day basis due to limited communication from the ground up.

Additionally, decisions may be misunderstood while being passed from level to level in order to get to top management, which can lead to finding solutions for the wrong problem and lead to discrepancies. The project may not receive timely support and attention, leading to increased cost and duration of the project.

The Solution: Decentralized Decisions, or Develop Trust in Project Team to Make Project Decisions

The Agile process uses decentralized decision making which means teams can independently decide what is best to meet the requirements of the project. The key here is teams are given autonomy and freedom to make choices that keep their project moving forward. These decisions will be related to products, milestones, activities, and resources required on the project.

This method delivers value in the shortest lead time, cutting down delays between approvals, and therefore expediting the process overall. It improves communication between the stakeholders and the incumbent teams and enables them to learn from one another.

Finally, this also frees up top management to focus on new ideas that improve agency functionality and drives mission delivery. The primary requirement for leadership in this situation is to envelop trust in their team. That trust can be built over time – and we can start small. Allow your team to make small decisions on the project, and once you see that these are effective and efficient, trust will grow naturally and you’ll be able to have peace of mind knowing they’re driving the project to success.

What Decisions Should Be Decentralized?

Of course, major decisions should still escalate to top management. However, here are the types of decisions that the project team can handle:

Frequent – The problems addressed by decentralized decisions are recurrent and common (e.g., Team and Program Backlog prioritization, real-time Agile Release Train [ART] scoping, response to defects and emerging issues).

Time-critical – Delaying these types of decisions comes with a high cost of delay (e.g., point releases, customer emergencies, dependencies with other teams).

Require local information – These decisions need specific local context, whether it be technology, organization, or specific customer or market impact (e.g., shipping a release to a specific customer, resolve a significant design problem, self-organization of individuals and teams to an emerging challenge).

Conclusion

Trust is the bedrock of Agile teams. Technical teams need to trust one another as well as the process. The project manager needs to trust the team and believe that the best work is being done. Likewise, the stakeholders need to trust the incumbent for the relationship to work. Decentralized decision making can work only if there is trust between both parties.

Decentralized decision making flattens the organization hierarchy. Research shows that the more complex and interdependent a project is, the less vertical the chain of command should be. Interpersonal relationships and collaboration create a peer-to-peer learning environment which improves both satisfaction in the work itself as well as efficiency and quality in the work overall.