NUS-ISS 4th Agile Community of Practice (CoP): Agile Development with Agile Contract, by Mr Steven Koh, Assistant Director (Agile Coach), IDA-Government Digital Services (GDS)

1. Agile Contract
GDS Product Development
Steven Koh

2. 2
Steven Koh
• Over 13 years experience in building high volume,
low latency eCommerce and Engineering Systems
across financial sector, high tech manufacturing and
supply chain industry
• Rotated across various roles such as sysadmin, dba,
developer, systems architect and scrum master
• US Patent 8,301,412 | Certified Professional in .NET,
Oracle, Solaris, Red Hat and Scrum Master
• Currently, an Agile Coach in Government Digital
Services (GDS)
• Co-creator of Agile Contract, IDA(T)-1233 & IDA(T)-1416
• Mentor and train agile practices
• Build high performing agile team and deliver citizen-
centric digital services in GDS
steven_koh@ida.gov.sg
www.meetup.com/Singapore-GDS

3. 3
Agenda
• Breakout
• Can agile work in government?
• How to procure agile professional services?
• Closing

4. 4
Breakout

5. 5
1. What do I do in company?
2. Why am I here?
3. My expectation about this
session
<Name>
<Company>
Self-Introduction
Expectation 1
Expectation 2
Expectation 3

6. 6
Can agile work in
government?
• World wide adoption trend
• Our agile journey

7. 7
UK Government Taskforce
Recommends Agile Practices in 2011
“The cases and evidence reviewed
for this report demonstrate that
projects run using agile methods
can deliver better outcomes at
lower cost more quickly. Agile
focuses on delivering useable
functionality quickly, rather than
a ‘perfect solution’ late.” – UK
Govt. Taskforce

8. 8

9. 9
US Government – FBI Sentinel
Project

10. 10
US Government – FBI Sentinel
Project
After the first failed attempt, US Government Accountability
Office said, “When you do a program like this, you need to apply
a level of rigor and discipline that's very high.”
1st attempt
(Waterfall)
•5 years
•USD 170 million
2nd attempt
(Waterfall)
•5 years
•USD 425 million
3rd attempt
(Agile)
•3 years
•USD 99 million
Two failed waterfall attempt
• Ten years
• USD 597 million dollars

11. 11
US Government Accountability Office
Recommends Agile Practices in 2012
“Officials who have used Agile on
federal projects at five agencies
generally agreed that the
practices identified by the
experienced users are effective
in a federal setting.” – US GAO

12. 12

13. 13
Agile Singapore Conference
1. 2014 Building an agile government - http://sched.co/1ruPFJS
2. 2015 – Agile at Scale in the government -
http://www.agiletoursingapore.org/#schedule
3. 2016 – Coming in Nov 

14. 14
Municipal Service Delivery
Mobile App
1. MND/PSD/MOF
2. Cross Agency Collaboration between 7
agencies; AVA, HDB, NPARKs, LTA, SPF,
PUB and NEA
3. One stop reporting /tracking of
Municipal issue for citizens
4. Further enhances “No wrong door”
policy
5. Future integration with sensors
networks

15. 15
1. Activate Certified CPR-trained folks in
emergency cases (100,000
specialists)
2. Locate nearby Automatic External
Defibrillator (AED)
3. Integrate with the Command Centre
System (995)
4. Increase survivability of victims
SCDF LifeSaver AED Mobile

16. 16
Business Grant Portal
1. One-stop business grant application portal for Singapore
businesses
2. Simplified application process to make government grants more
accessible to businesses

17. 17
Our Communities
Regular events for public officers
• Monthly Agile Brown Bag
• Monthly Agile Clinic
Others
• Meetup - Agile Singapore meetup
• Agile Government Leadership

18. 18
How to procure agile
professional services?
• Agile Bulk Tender
• Product requirement management
• UAT & payment milestones
• Project outcomes

19. 19
Agile Bulk Tender
• Scope
a) Project Services for UX Design and Agile Application
Development and Maintenance (AMS and SR)
b) Tools for UX Design and Agile Application Development and
Implementation
• Objective
• Encourage agencies to collaborate with GDS and work
side-by-side with service providers via the bulk tender.

20. 20
Request for Quotation
• While the full detail is in Requirement Specifications,
Part 2B, the key differences as compared to traditional
waterfall project are stated here:
1. Agency provides the project objective and outcome to
Tenderers

21. 21
2. Suppliers respond with Product Backlog (PBL)
• PBL contains User Stories and associated story points
• PBL contains User Story-Story Point benchmarks indicator
• PBL is prioritized and contains Release Plan
• User Stories are INVEST (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable,
Estimable, Small, Testable)

22. 22
Request for Quotation
3. Suppliers respond with default ‘Definition of Done’, sprint
velocity, number of iterations, length of iteration, fixed
price to complete all the story points and dollar per
iteration. While Agencies may choose to indicate
“Definition of Done”, Suppliers shall response with “DOD”
4. Suppliers respond with Sprint Backlog (SBL) of 1st
iteration
• User Stories of SBL must contain Conversation and
Confirmation (functional and non-functional)
• SBL contains task level breakdown with estimated IMD effort
• Each task’s estimated effort must be broken down to 2 days
or lesser

23. 23
Request for Quotation
5. Suppliers will be provided with toolkit to assess their
agile maturity level
5. For high risk projects, agencies should shortlist two or
three tenderers to conduct a PoC, to assess their
capability – using their submitted sprint backlog in
previous point (4)
 Agency should fix the sprint duration for PoC

24. 24
Product Requirement
Management

25. 25
Scenario 1: Change Requirement
requires Extra Story Points
 Agency can include “options” in their RFQ.
 This “option” may be activated during the product development or
after production release, as long as within the contractual period
of Agile Bulk Tender.

26. 26
• User Story & Story Points which were quoted during the
beginning of the project and then were not developed due to
change in requirement will be deducted from the total cost.
• For additional info, Please refer to Slide Project Outcome 2 :
Agency terminated contract by Convenience/Non-Default.
Scenario 2: Reduction – Not all
Story Points were developed

27. 27
Scenario 3: Total Story Points remain
the same
• Refer to Part 2b - REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATIONS AGILE
APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN
SERVICES, SECTION B, Page 18
Any user story/requirement in Product Backlog can be exchanged
with new user stories / requirements with the approval of the
Agency, as long as the total cost of revised story points in the
Product Backlog does not exceed the contract price issued in the
Purchase Order.
.

28. 28
UAT and
Payment Milestones

29. 29
SCHEDULE 1 – PARTICULAR CONDITIONS FOR
PURCHASE OF AGILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND
MAINTENANCE SERVICES Page 40

30. 30
SCHEDULE 3 - PAYMENT TERMS Page 62

31. 31
Possible
Project Outcomes

32. 32
Project Outcome 1 : Breach of Performance
• Supplier is unable to meet the committed sprint
velocity for X consecutive sprints. It is foreseen that
supplier is unable to complete project by
commissioning date.
Outcome:
a) Agency chooses to terminate the contract due to breach of
performance. Refer to Contractual T&C – LD section
b) Agency continues with the selected supplier till commission
date. Agency only pays for what has been delivered,
prorated by delivered story points
c) Agency continues with the selected supplier till all agreed
story points are delivered
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

33. 33
Project Outcome 2 : Agency terminates
contract by Convenience/Non-Default
• Part 1B Annex I, Clause 14.6
• Happens due to change in business direction, good-enough
system and no fault on supplier.
• Agency should pay supplier up to the last piece of work done ,
prorated by delivered story points
Example :-
• Supplier’s commitment: 20 iterations with average velocity of 10
story points at $X
• Actual: 10 iterations have been completed with average sprint
velocity of 5 story points
• Then we should only pay for 50 story points which is $X/4 and not
by 10 iterations which is $X/2

34. 34
Project Outcome 3 : Blue Sky Scenario
• Supplier completes all the agreed story points within fewer
or exact iterations
a) System is commissioned and project is completed.
Remaining payment is released to supplier. Project
completes
b) Agency purchases additional iterations to further enhance
the system. Project completes
• In all cases, the supplier is incentivized to improve their
productivity

35. 35
Closing

36. 36
Agile Suppliers
• Difference between Agile Contract, (T)-1233 vs.
(T)-1416
• (T)-1233: Agile Project Services
• Fixed cost, story point based
• Expires Jul 2017
• (T)-1416: Agile Technical Specialist
• Staff augmentation
• Closes on 15 Feb
• Aaron_MA@ida.gov.sg

37. 37
Public Service Officer
• Be notified http://www.meetup.com/Singapore-GDS/
• Monthly Agile Brown Bag sharing
• How to use (T)-1233
• GDS Consultancy Services
• Monthly Agile Clinic
• Solve project specific challenges
• Agile Coaches from (T)-1233 Suppliers
• GDS Agile Coaches

38. 38
Retrospective
1. Discuss if your expectations are met
2. Share your key takeaway
Takeaway 1 Takeaway 2 Takeaway 3

39. 39
Lastly,
1. Join http://www.meetup.com/Agile-Singapore/ for our
monthly meetup
2. We are hiring, https://sg.linkedin.com/in/stevenkoh