Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) has been a mainstay of most government projects for decades. IV&V has typically been considered a testing function. For others, it has been more of a process function. The IV&V consultants evaluate how well the project is doing in terms of staying on track, creating deliverables that make sense, and actually accomplishing their goals. The same should be true for Agile. Unfortunately, Agile projects typically have a different approach to documentation and deliverables than a Waterfall project does.
We’ve come up with an approach to IV&V for Agile projects that is really designed around how Agile teams should work. There are two possible options that have been used over the years for Agile IV&V; Embedded or Independent. In theory, the Embedded approach fits better with the overall approach to Agile. But the IV&V staff simply be ended up becoming part of the team. It also loses some of the independence, or the perception of oversight associated with IV&V.
An Independent Approach
We prefer the Independent approach to Independent Verification and Validation. The downside in many organizations, is that by doing additional things outside of the team approach, it can create additional loops for evaluation and timekeeping. We try to match the scrum or program increment flow as closely as possible. So as not to negatively impact the experience. This includes setting up metrics and touchpoints with in the existing structure, so that it is simply part of the existing process. We do our best to act as observers, with a few additional steps during the retrospectives.
If you’ve been struggling to find an option to do IV&V for your Agile government project let us know. Engagements are typically structured by the programming increment for the service, because it’s not appropriate to charge by the project.
We can set you up with the tools and the approach. We try to minimally impact your process, adding only one additional meeting to both the beginning and ending of each program increment for each of sprint cycle.
