18F/18f.gsa.gov

---
title: "3 ways for digital acquisition teams to work better"
authors:
- amy-wilson
- clara-tsao
tags:
- digital acquisition accelerator
- acquisition services
- presidential innovation fellows
- procurement
- training
excerpt: "As we work through this pilot phase of the Digital Acquisition
Accelerator, we’ll be sharing our work and the lessons we learn. We hope
this will help other interested teams follow along and also give the
public on opportunity to give us feedback on our pilot. Here are three
techniques that our team practiced with the FBI and Treasury teams
during the recent kickoff of the pilot."
description: "As we work through this pilot phase of the Digital
Acquisition Accelerator, we’ll be sharing our work and the lessons we
learn. We hope this will help other interested teams follow along and
also give the public on opportunity to give us feedback on our pilot.
Below are three techniques that our team practiced with the FBI and
Treasury teams during the recent kickoff of the pilot."
---
In early June, 18F announced the launch of the [Digital Acquisition
Accelerator](https://pages.18f.gov/digitalaccelerator/), a 6-8 month
program aimed at creating change agents within two agencies to inspire a
culture shift towards modern digital acquisition practices. In short,
this Accelerator helps agencies be better “buyers” of products within
the government. This past month, [the Accelerator launched its first
cohort](https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/06/15/two-agencies-participating-in-the-digital-acquisition-accelerator-pilot/) introducing the concepts of human-centered
design, lean-agile methodologies, open innovation, and modular
contracting to cross-functional teams of contracting officers,
developers, program managers, and product owners from the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

As we work through this pilot phase of the Accelerator, we’ll be sharing
our work and the lessons we learn. We hope this will help other
interested teams follow along and also give the public an opportunity to
give us feedback on our pilot. Below are three techniques that our team
practiced with the FBI and Treasury teams during the recent kickoff of
the pilot.

### 1. Test hypotheses with real users 

Designing digital products around government services can get tricky,
especially when products have to serve a wide net of users — from
tech-savvy millennials who know the latest technology trends to seniors
looking to receive their social security benefits. A goal of training
was to have participants undergo hands-on experience with building
fictional products with real users. Through this exercise, the agency
teams learned how to apply [lean startup](http://theleanstartup.com/principles) principles such as:

- A mindset of experimentation over elaborate planning
- Customer feedback instead of intuition
- Iterative design

Teams thought through their product in terms of the value it provided to
customers via the [Value Proposition
canvas](http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/vpc) to find out
if their product met users’ needs.

Participants were challenged to get out of the building and test their
initial hypotheses and assumptions about their fictional product. They
asked 3-5 real users questions to validate if their hypotheses were
correct, synthesized their findings, saw how their hypotheses changed,
and created new questions to validate new assumptions. Armed with this
new view of their product, they went out and interviewed users once
again.

Feedback collected through this customer discovery work reshaped their
value proposition and helped give them insights into what should be
their fictional product’s minimum viable product (MVP). Participants
built their MVP prototype, and got out of the building one more time —
but this time they were running experiments with real potential
customers to see what worked and what needed improvement. This took
their ideas from abstract brainstorming to concrete reactions from real
people, and taught them lessons they could apply immediately to their
products.

### 2. Bring like-minded changemakers into the same room 

One of the biggest takeaways of the training week was bringing product
teams from different agencies together to learn together as a cohort. In
a challenging environment where legacy software systems, policy
restrictions, and lengthy contracts can hamper new ways of approaching
product development, it’s easy for teams looking to be more agile to
become discouraged. Our model emphasizes having a cohort that allows for
cross-functional as well as cross-agency networking and learning. This
was so effective that the agency teams expressed interest in continuing
to meet together as a cohort, even beyond the conclusion of the
training.

### 3. Adopt open communication tools

Culture shift in procurement practices not only requires changes in
mindset but also in methods. One major challenge faced by many
government agencies today is restrictions on the type of productivity
tools and software allowed within agencies. During the first day of
training, we asked participants, “what tools do you currently use for
communication?” Popular responses included “instant messaging, email,
telephone, and face-to-face meetings.” Generally the participants in the
room found that this was not always the best ways to work, but only work
with the tools that were provided for them. To help the teams shift
their methods to match the new mindset they were learning, we suggested
they seek out tools that could help them streamline communication,
collaboratively manage a product backlog, and collaborate on open
software and solicitations.

Bringing it all together 
-------------------------

“This is a pilot.” reads the final slide of our kickoff presentation for
the Digital Acquisition Accelerator. This was placed there deliberately:
we embrace the experimentation that we teach and seek feedback to
validate our own assumptions and biases like we teach in our training
bootcamp. We’re piloting this program as much within the government as
we are within the FBI and Treasury.

We know that the best way to improve this pilot is to be proactive about
talking about our work and to constantly seek feedback from participants
and the public. We have already started using the feedback that we've
gotten from the teams to shape this pilot, and we continue to
share our work through blog posts like this so the public can see how
the federal government is embracing modern design and development. Next,
we’ll be launching a three-part series that outlines our methodology on
how to understand and scope a product out *before* you write a
solicitation to vendors to build out a solution. To ensure you’re not
missing these updates, subscribe to [our mailing
list](https://medium.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=5dc46345e0302158f44cf54d5&id=118734743e).