Software acquisition process improvement

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You can change the active elements on the page buttons and links by pressing a combination of keys:. I accept. Polski English Login or register account. Chaves Weber, K. Abstract This paper describes an initiative to improve software acquisition process in Brazil.

This initiative was conducted in the context of the MPS. This paper presents the main achievements of the MPS. This work also presents the customization of the MPS Acquisition process for specific purposes in the context of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply MAPA , including process instantiation of the customized acquisition process, aiming to improve quality of basic projects in the Information Technology Area and to assure contracting of services and products which satisfy the MAPA needs.

This elimination allows companies to reduce unnecessary costs and improve process efficiency. With increased profits, companies can find themselves in a stronger financial position in unstable economic environments. Lean strategies allow businesses to offer what their customers want when they want while keeping costs low, having high flexibility and quality, and fast turnaround times. The Lean Enterprise Institute defines a five-step process for the implementation of the lean approach:.

With the latest technology in AI and machine learning, businesses can identify customer value more easily and accurately. The growing amount of data enables companies to know their customers better, and the latest machine learning algorithms can provide insights about customer value. Another fundamental impact of machine learning is to understand the processes.

Machine learning methods benefit from customer data and event logs to create cause-and-effect relations between different actions and provide what processes actually look like.

As a result, businesses that adopt the lean approach can easily detect and eliminate unnecessary steps. Besides machine learning and AI, you can find how process mining technology directly impacts the lean approach below:.

These tools give data-driven insights about processes and connect process steps in a cause-and-effect relationship. As the elimination of these steps is one of the main principles of lean management, process mining supports this strategy to rapidly and accurately detect them and allow companies to reduce costs. With process mining, businesses can also understand what steps are missing in processes for success and create value-adding steps instead of eliminating steps for process improvement.

You can read process mining case studies in our related article. You can also read our in-depth process mining guide to understand how it works and why it is needed for process improvement. If you have questions about how lean process approach can help your business, feel free to ask us:. Let us find the right vendor for your business. Your feedback is valuable. We will do our best to improve our work based on it.

Cem founded the high tech industry analyst AIMultiple in Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech companies that reached from 0 to 3M annual recurring revenue within 2 years. Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences.

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Definition: Agile acquisition is the strategy, structure, and process to effectively adopt and apply agile software development methodologies. Agile acquisition integrates planning, design, development, and testing into an iterative life cycle to deliver small, frequent, incremental capabilities to an end user.

Agile acquisition in government programs requires integrated government and contractor processes and partnerships. It embraces the agile development principles of self-organizing cross-functional teams, frequent capability deliveries, continuous user participation and feedback, and evolving requirements.

Keywords: acquisition strategy, agile, agile acquisition, agile development, incremental, uncertainty, rapid. MITRE SE Roles and Expectations: MITRE systems engineers SEs are expected to understand the fundamentals of agile acquisition, identify when it is appropriate to adopt an agile strategy, and understand how to successfully adopt and implement agile practices for a program. They should understand how systems engineering processes may change within an agile environment and how to tailor them to program constraints and objectives.

SEs must understand that the challenges of dynamic development, requirements, and related processes require significant rigor, coordination, and integration. Agile development is built around a culture of small, dynamic, empowered teams actively collaborating with stakeholders throughout product development.

Agile development requires team members to follow disciplined processes that require training, guidance, and culture change. The agile method does not follow a set of standard "waterfall"-based prescribed formal processes. Agile methods demand processes specifically tailored for a rapid, iterative, dynamic development approach, especially in the areas of requirements, test, and systems engineering.

Enabling an agile acquisition strategy demands some degree of upfront planning and design, but it places importance on beginning development quickly. The fundamental assumption is that requirements, designs, and capabilities will evolve as team members gain information during the development process [1]. In determining whether an agile acquisition strategy is appropriate for the program, it is critical to evaluate the operational, acquisition, and developer conditions.

Agile acquisition strategies should be considered when:. Agile acquisition works best with smaller scoped developments, such as a self-contained application or incremental upgrade to an operational system. Agile can scale to apply to larger development efforts, but this requires additional rigor in technical architecture, coordination across development teams, and integration.

It is difficult to develop a large infrastructure system from the start using agile development. The more agile development can leverage an established infrastructure platform, the more autonomy the team will have for their iterative development. A program can initially use a traditional approach to build an initial increment that meets the baseline architecture requirements.

Once the program has established a baseline and framed the overall conceptual design, program managers can consider shifting to an agile approach for subsequent releases that build additional functionality into the operational baseline. Setting up an agile environment.

An agile acquisition strategy represents a change in the way the government traditionally conducts business. Programs must rethink how they are staffed, organized, and managed, and they must structure the business processes, governance reviews, and funding models to support agile methods. Agile requires dedicated government involvement throughout the entire process in order to plan and integrate multiple releases, oversee development cycles, manage evolving requirements, facilitate collaboration, and obtain committed, active, and consistent user engagement.

The optimal structure to foster a collaborative environment features physical collocation of the acquisition support team, which consists of the program staff, contractor, and supporting functional areas. Constant communication across the team is essential.