Learning Techniques for Public Servants

Five learning techniques that public servants can employ to perform their jobs more effectively in today’s complex technological environment.

Why Government IT Professionals Need to Do What the Cool Kids Are Doing

A case for why hiring and growing great people requires government IT professionals to do what the cool kids are doing.

Puerto Rico, a Disaster Lab: Three Research Proposals

Puerto Rico is a natural testing-ground for disaster resilience technologies due to its unique characteristics. Here we present three research project ideas in the Internet of Things space.

Maximizing the Power of APIs: Balancing Freedom and Control

If an organization really wants to empower its users, it needs a way to provide maximum power to the user with both safety and security. APIs allow you to design a solution that’s not simply the average of these extremes, but rather provides 90% of the power with 99% of the security.

Quick Wins for Legacy Systems Through API Enablement

A lighthearted, mock email between two government program managers discussing the immediate benefits of API enablement as a precursor to modernizing a legacy system.

Story of a DARPA Proposal

A brief story of our experience submitting a proposal to DARPA to conduct research on the latest Low Power Wide Area Network technology.

How to Rescue Failing Programs

To rescue a failing program, you must protect the four freedoms of enterprise system development.

Unsolicited Proposal for a Microconsulting Services Marketplace Platform

A preannouncement for an unsolicited proposal to construct a microconsulting services marketplace platform, which we plan to pitch to the entire federal government.

Reactions to Our Agile Share-in-Savings Model

Several months ago, we published a blog post series on a concept called Agile Share-in-Savings. We received a number of positive reactions, as well as some worthy counter-arguments.

Software Badness Quantified

Until a more robust model for measuring technical debt is developed, we suggest using a simple formula for measuring the “badness” of a codebase in order to facilitate system improvement decisions.

Case Management: A Study in Non-Traditional Economics for Government

Case management systems are commonplace and largely overlap. Agencies and vendors should consider innovative models for cooperating with one another in order to reduce duplicative efforts.