Agile in the Federal Space: Best Practices for Keeping Documentation Lean

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One of the major tenets of the Agile Manifesto lauds “working software over comprehensive documentation.” However, in a heavily regulated environment, such as the Federal government, comprehensive documentation ensures traceability and is viewed as a necessary and critical artifact of the standard software development process. While the government is increasing its support of modular IT development approaches, documentation requirements set by Federal policies and processes continue to pose problems for Agile teams in the Federal IT space. In this presentation, we will explore the challenges presented by documentation requirements through a case study of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Operations Network Incident Management System (EON IMS) development team. We will then identify best practices used by the EON IMS team that can help other Agile teams in the Federal IT space overcome these obstacles.