18F/18f.gsa.gov

---
layout: post
date: '2014-05-14T11:02:00-04:00'
tumblr_url: http://18fblog.tumblr.com/post/85724876053/hacking-bureaucracy-improving-hiring-and-software

title: "Hacking bureaucracy: improving hiring and software deployment"

description: When asked what it is we do, one quick answer is, "We’re hacking bureaucracy." While it may sound provocative, it isn’t.
excerpt: <p>When asked what it is we do, one quick answer is, "we’re hacking bureaucracy." While it may sound provocative, it isn’t.</p>

<p>In the movies, hackers are often dangerous criminals who break into large systems, but in the software development community, "hacker" describes the way someone thinks and works rather than a malicious activity — hackers are problem solvers. We consider ourselves hackers in that positive sense: productively disruptive and curious. See <a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/what_is_a_hacke.html">"What is a Hacker?"</a> by Bruce Schneier for a wonderful definition.</p>

image:

authors:
- greg
- noah

tags:
- culture change
- how we work
- culture
- join us


---
When asked what it is we do, one quick answer is, "we’re hacking
bureaucracy." While it may sound provocative, it isn’t.

In the movies, hackers are often dangerous criminals who break into
large systems, but in the software development community, "hacker"
describes the way someone thinks and works rather than a malicious
activity — hackers are problem solvers. We consider ourselves hackers in
that positive sense: productively disruptive and curious. See ["What is
a
Hacker?"](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/what_is_a_hacke.html)
by Bruce Schneier for a wonderful definition.

It’s not enough for us to just build software inside the federal
government. Such an approach may bring short term gains, but it won’t
drive long term positive change. At 18F we’re integrating our style of
software development with the many departments and employees of the
federal bureaucracy. This is the human platform on which we build our
software platforms.

When we launched 18F internally in December, we decided to start with
two initial big and challenging projects: improving the efficiency and
agility of first the hiring process and second the software deployment
process. Building our "startup" inside the federal bureaucracy meant
first integrating with the federal bureaucracy.

Historically, hiring and software deployment practices inside the
federal government have posed significant challenges for agile and
user-centered software development practices. These processes need to
take weeks, not months.

18F is approaching hiring and software deployment in the same agile,
open, user-centered way that we approach all of our projects:

-   Find innovators inside government who have solved similar problems
-   Engage stakeholders and users early and often
-   Set up a minimum viable product to get started quickly
-   Give real users the process/solution from the beginning
-   Learn and iterate our approach
-   Stay aligned with the rules of the bureaucracy
-   Formalize the process/solution for reuse

The initial results have been exciting. **Collaboratively, we've
significantly improved turnaround times for hiring and secure
deployments.** We’ve reduced the time to hire by 70 percent, and the
time to deploy software by 80 percent, and many of our products are now
in continuous deployment. Despite the constraints of the federal
bureaucracy, continuous iterative improvement is possible. These
processes and policies are now being formalized and we intend to make
them repeatable and useful to the rest of the federal government.

Our colleagues, who have been innovating within the government for
years, have been excellent teachers. These results are not possible
without the strong partnerships and leadership provided by multiple
teams inside GSA: the [Administrator’s
Office](http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/21034), [Human Resources
Management](http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/21403), [Office of the
CIO](http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/21404), [Office of the Senior
Information Security Officer](http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/25690),
and many other technologists throughout the federal government. In the
spirit of the collaboration that helped to achieve these results, we
plan to share the details of our HR process and software deployment
process publicly.

This is the first of an ongoing series of blogs where we share the
details, methods, and stories of how 18F hacks bureaucracy.

You can also view our ["Hacking Bureaucracy"
presentation](https://speakerdeck.com/18f/hacking-bureaucracy-18f-demo-day-9-may-2014)
from 18F Demo Day on May 9th:

{% oembed https://speakerdeck.com/18f/hacking-bureaucracy-18f-demo-day-9-may-2014 %}