From waterfall to agile: How a public-sector agency successfully changed its system-development approach to become digital

Martin Lundqvist and PeterBraad Olesen at McKinsey: “Government agencies around the world are under internal and external pressure to become more efficient by incorporating digital technologies and processes into their day-to-day operations. For a lot of public-sector organizations, however, the digital transformation has been bumpy. In many cases, agencies are trying to streamline and automate workflow and processes using antiquated systems-development approaches. Such methods make direct connections between citizens and governments over the Internet more difficult. They also prevent IT organizations from quickly adapting to ever-changing systems requirements or easily combining information from disparate systems. Despite the emergence, over the past decade, of a number of productivity-enhancing technologies, many government institutions continue to cling to old, familiar ways of developing new processes and systems. Nonetheless, a few have been able to change mind-sets internally, shed outdated approaches to improving processes and developing systems, and build new ones. Critically, they have embraced newer techniques, such as agile development, and succeeded in accelerating the digital transformation in core areas of their operations. The Danish Business Authority is one of those organizations.…(More)”