Can Agile Principles Improve Development Programs?

Online Worldwide - March 17 - RSVP Now

Most US government funded international development programs start with a very prescriptive proposal that details every action, result, and expense over a 3-5 year period. In some of the most chaotic and challenging operating environments on earth. Yet any significant deviation from that initial design, often written in a jet-lagged rush, can be considered a failure.

In the technology world, this is the classic “waterfall” approach, now discredited in favor of agile software development. There is a growing trend to adopt agile processes in international aid programs to give greater flexibility and support better outcomes.

Agile Development

Agile software development focuses on speeding up solution delivery and enabling earlier decision-making with incremental, iterative planning and execution, led by small teams that collaborate closely with stakeholders to respond rapidly to change.

In agile development, the logframe is flexible, the intermediate results can change, and the final program outcomes may look very different from the original proposal. Core to the agile approach is the ability to pivot. To radically change the intervention (as needed) to achieve the overall program goals.

However, this flexible approach poses a major challenge to contract managers, evaluation specialists, and program auditors constrained by strict contract agreements and FAR requirements. In the waterfall methodology, deviance from expected activity equals failure, regardless of outcome.

Program Agility

The USAID Framework for Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting is one way that one donor is incorporating agile approaches into foregin assistance. This data-driven approach expects programs to proactively measure their outputs, share good and bad results with donors, and make quick pivots to always be increasing outcomes.

While it is a formal USAID framework, it is not universally adopted or implemented. As with agile itself, there is resistance to change. We need to learn from other organizations. For example:

How are UNICEF programs adopting agile approaches to be more effective?
Will we see more co-creation procurement processes from FCDO?
Can the Gates Foundation build on their agile Grand Challenges grant program?

Join Us on March 17

Please RSVP Now for the next Technology Salon where we will discuss where waterfall fails us, the promise of agile approaches in our work, how CLA could be a path forward, and what other approaches can work, with questions like:

Where does traditional program design fail our project constituents?
What are the benefits of agile project management?
When can we apply agile principles in humanitarian projects?
Why does CLA offer a better approach to MERL?
How are donors incentivizing agile processes in development?
Who is innovating with agile? What are they learning?

Please RSVP Now to share your ideas and insights with thought leaders and decision makers and these lead discussants:

Jessica Oyugi, Community Health Specialist, UNICEF
Kerry Bruce, Vice President for Measurement and Impact, Bixal
Piers Bocock, Co-Founder, Acute Incite
Rebecca White, Senior Project Analyst, USAID

Even online, space is limited to foster intimate conversations, so please RSVP now and be sure to note the Relevance section in your application to attend! Once we reach our discussion capacity there will be a waiting list!

Agile in Development
Technology Salon DC
8:45 – 10:30am Eastern Time
March 17, 2021
Online around the world
RSVP is required for attendance

About the Technology Salon

The Technology Salon™ is an intimate, informal, and in-person, discussion between information and communication technology experts and international development professionals, with a focus on both:

Technology's impact on donor-sponsored technical assistance delivery, and
Private enterprise driven economic development, facilitated by technology.

Our meetings are lively conversations, not boring presentations. Attendance is capped at 35 people - and frank participation with ideas, opinions, and predictions is actively encouraged.

It's also a great opportunity to meet others motivated to employ technology to solve vexing development problems. Join us today!