Brownfield

Maybe you’ve noticed recently, or a long time ago, that getting stuff done just isn’t so easy anymore. Redoubling efforts doesn’t seem to make up the gap. Intentions and expectations are lowered and still quality or schedules are suffering. It’s not an easy cycle to break, but there are lots of approaches to try!

No Factor Apps is what we can call classic applications that people have been building since the dawn of time. This is a reference to the “factors” used by the folks at 12factor.net which is a fantastic resource for what approaches to use and how they contribute to improved delivery quality and speed.

Organizations with policies established during a time where colocation was the only way to work are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to suddenly remote productivity. The work from home lifestyle of taking a day to send a few emails but mostly be unproductive was begrudgingly accepted as an infrequent quality of life boost. Reversing that trend, during a pandemic, with kids home and elevated stress levels, it’s going to be tough.

After attending the ATARC IRS Container Forum late last year, I was inspired to share some of my perspective. Between the folks who spoke at that forum and my own interactions with federal agencies, it was clear that waterfall was leaking into DevOps.

Agile software development has revolutionized the way private sector organizations build software. The primary tenets are that all companies are software companies, software is never done, and requirements always change. What does that mean for the federal space?

Organizations of all sizes fall victim to the wrong goal trap. Anywhere with more than 2 levels of management have intermediate layers with the goal of team growth or revenue increase at the expense of the larger system. Growing a DevOps team could lead to less efficient operations if they become an integral part to everyday operations. It would be better for them to be constrained and simply provide infrastructure and templates to the developers.

My favorite example of “rule beating” is the secure network that reduces usability to the point that people use hot spots and other mechanisms to complete their work. If you want developers to work, they need stackoverflow.

This is a pretty commonly used phrase so I won’t belabor the point, but it’s an important trap to be cognizant of when sharing resources. The most common solution to this problem appears to be “chargeback accounting” where ever mission and cost center has to justify their budget through revenue, even if it’s internal services.

The drift to low performance trap is incredibly pertinent to large enterprises and public sector organizations. In particular, system administrators and security practitioners appear to have many government programs held hostage by nightmarish controls and delays. “Everything takes a long time because [procurement, security, network, infrastructure, et cetera].”

Escalation or “Arms Race” is a feedback loop where increasing intensity is the only option for multiple participants in a system. The most obvious example of this is competitive exclusion, why just a few companies have the vast majority of government contracts. This anti-competitive behavior may be related to the drift to low performance.