MattAndrews

Jobs and Black Economic Empowerment: Missing The Point in South Africa

I don't often blog about policy in South Africa, but recent frustrating back-and-forth on core policy centered on Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has been frustrating to watch--especially given recent unemployment statistics that show a bad situation getting worse (see http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/editorials/2015/05/28/editorial-jobs-should-be-an-obsession).

So, here is my view on Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa (sorry for those who have no interest).

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has been a priority of the South African government for a number of years now. This is an appropriate and important priority, centered on empowering those who had been left behind by the past economic system. The BEE approach has centered largely on improving participation of these people in ownership and management structures in formal firms that were previously dominated by white men. This is an important aspect of adjustment and change in South Africa.

But most of the disempowered people in South Africa have not been empowered by such policies—and are unlikely to be empowered by such policies in the future. This is because the real empowerment problem is all about jobs, and BEE as currently shaped pays too little attention to incentivizing and supporting broad-based job creation.

My view on this is not original, but is reflected in government statistics for all to see. Labour force surveys count only 55% of Black African citizens as economically active, and only 70% of those who are active are employed. This means that about 17 million working age Black Africans are not working in the formal economy. The Coloured community and women suffer in this area as well, making up a population of over about 20 million South Africans who remain excluded from the formal economy. They are the truly disempowered South Africans. And there are more of them—in absolute and relative terms—since BEE began.

In 2008 I was part of a team from Harvard that advised government to expand the BEE regime to include a focus on job creation if it really prioritized economic empowerment. We suggested a simple approach for this, adding BEE dimensions to reward firms that hire new workers, and individuals who create new businesses, and firms that take the risk to produce new export products (especially manufactured goods that absorb less qualified labour). The theory behind this was simply that South Africa requires more small business, manufacturing, and export activity if it is to grow and create the kind of jobs its many unemployed people need. Read the report here, and summary ideas here.

These dimensions are still nowhere to be seen in the BEE scorecard (used to assess whether firms are BEE compliant), which has in many ways focused even more narrowly on ownership and participation at the top of the economy. The policy is imbalanced, and needs revision to focus on jobs at the bottom and middle of the economy as well. If this does not happen, BEE will continue to be a policy regime that simply misses the point on empowerment.

Getting Best Fit in Development Projects is like buying a new suit

I often hear talk of moving from best practice to best fit in development. When I ask what people mean by this I seldom get the same answer. But the basic idea is that multiple solutions are considered  instead of a one-best-way solution. I like the idea in concept and have written on it as a way of ensuring that we get past the tyranny of one-best-way. But I don't think having multiple solutions to choose from is enough.

Getting Best fit is not simply about looking at a variety of options and deciding which one works best in the place one is working. This is because it is really hard to know what led to and informed the ideas being considered, and it is hard to know what the contextual realities are in the place where one is doing the fitting. So: One may think that an idea from South Africa will work in Botswana, because there are contextual similarities, but one does not know if the South African idea depends on very localized political or capacity issues that are not present in Botswana.

The only way one truly does best fit is by trying stuff out and learning what works, hopefully why, and then adapting. Try the South African example in Botswana, ask where it is working and why, and then chisel the idea into a shape that fits Botswana better -- simultaneously building some new capacities in Botswana to make the fit work. 

It is not, therefore, about getting best fit in some conceptual manner, but about 'fitting' in practice. Kind of like being a tailor to someone looking for a new suit. How might it work? Let's think of buying a new suit....

• Identify the general type of suite that interests you...
• Choose a variety of potential suites off-the-shelf
• Try them on...with the tailor advising on their fit...
• Learn what kinds of cuts and styles work best for your look (you may be surprised and find your assumptions were incorrect)
• Decide on the style and cut and color you want (and other characteristics)
• See what you can take off-the-shelf (you may have the entire suite, or a jacket, or a jacket with sleeves that need shortening, etc.)
• Get the tailor to make alterations you need... as many as required
• try it on again
• make more alterations
• pay that tailor and leave, to impress the world with your best fitted suit!

 

 

The richest 30 countries in the world in 2040 are......

Many friends have encouraged me to read Thomas Pickety’s book Capital—on wealth and inequality in the 21^st century. http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X I have done so and think it is interesting. My own take on the issues he raises, at a global level, follows.

I think that the wealth of most nations has improved progressively over the last three decades. Pretty much everywhere. You can see it in Maputo—at least if you’re in the nicer parts of town—and in New York City—definitely in the nicer parts of town but in other areas as well.I think that the access to wealth has not increased at the same rate, however, which is part of Pickety’s concern. There is no doubt that most poor countries in 1980 still offer a version of backbreaking poverty for most citizens.

I am more interested today in thinking about global patterns, however. This is because the order of wealth across nations remains almost static after the past few decades of global growth, which I find intriguing and worthy of some attention. It suggests to me that poorer countries have enjoyed relatively less of the global growth spurt than those that were already relatively wealthier in 1980. This makes it possible to predict quite accurately which countries will be in the top leagues in thirty years and which will be in the bottom leagues.

Should this entrenched order of things concern us?  

Herewith my comments in more detail

The world’s economy has grown since the 1980s. Recent stories are effusive about the growth in developing countries in particular, and with good reason. World Bank data show that per capita incomes have just about doubled in this period in countries like Mozambique, Nepal, and Sudan. Explanations for the growth vary. Some suggest that global aid has made a difference; others point to expanded trade as the engine of progress; others reflect on the positive injections provided by natural resource and commodity booms in developing countries.

The different explanations as to why levels are up hold differently for different countries, but there is a common message across all countries, even beyond the developing world: The economic tide has risen for everyone, and a rising tide lifts all boats. Just look at the table from Inequality Watch (http://www.inequalitywatch.eu/spip.php?article102), which shows income levels now and then for a range of different country groups, which have all seen improvements.

 

It is interesting to note that, while we fawn over the experience in Africa, data show Dutch and American incomes grew by over 60% in the last thirty years. In fact, the wealthiest 40% of nations in 2010 had per capita incomes that were an average of 50% higher in 2010 than they were in 1980. This was much higher than the average thirty year per capita income growth rate in the poorest 20% of countries, which was only 13%.

So: Most countries have seen rising per capita incomes in the last thirty years but the increases seem highest—at last on average—in wealthier countries. Consider the figure—also from Inequality Watch (http://www.inequalitywatch.eu/spip.php?article102.

 

This suggests that the order of wealth among nations has probably remained pretty static over the last three decades and the gap between the countries at the top and those at the bottom must be growing. This does seem to be the case, and is evident when looking at a sample of 150 countries where data show incomes in both 1980 and 2010. Over 80% of the countries that were in the poorest twenty percent of this sample in 1980 were still there in 2010. Similarly, over 90% of the countries that were in the richest twenty percent in 1980 were still in that top quintile in 2010. The gap between average per capita incomes in the two groups grew from $23,000 in 1980 to over $34,000 in 2010.

So: We have different leagues of countries, countries have remained pretty much locked in their leagues over the past thirty years, and the gap between the top leagues and the bottom leagues has grown.

This does not mean that there was no churning over the period. Countries moved around quite a bit within their quintiles (leagues), about forty countries moved up or down one quintile (or league) and three moved up and down two quintiles (or leagues). Some of these change stories stand out as peculiarly important (especially the two most positive cases, China and India), but there are common storylines to tell as well. For instance, sixteen of the positive movers were small states and nine of the thirteen negative movers were in Africa and Latin America.  The African countries that moved down generally dropped to the lowest league, which meant that Africa’s membership in this poorest twenty percent of countries actually grew over the thirty years, from just over eighty to just over eighty six percent. Conversely, long-standing OECD members (mostly from Europe and North America) made up over eighty percent of the wealthiest league in both 1980 and 2000.  

What this means is that the economic order of nations has not changed much over the last three decades, regardless of the many crises, advances, and other events in that period.

If this history tells us anything it is that we have a pretty good idea of which countries will be in the top 30 or so wealthiest countries in the world in thirty more years. My prediction (not in order): Austria, Australia, the Bahamas, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden,  Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

We also have a pretty good idea of which countries will be in the bottom league, given how stuck they seem to be in such place. I bet that at least eighty percent of the following will be in this cellar: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kyrgyz Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia.

So: Does this matter?

I have been asking this question a lot in the past few days, wondering if it is good enough to say that after three decades of billions of dollars of aid, trade and natural resource findings the poorest countries in 1980 are less poor today but still comparatively the poorest (and in fact relatively further behind the wealthier countries than they were thirty years ago). I am not sure of the answer, but do think there are some concerns on the horizon, especially given the competitive nature of a global world: If skilled people are mobile, can poorer nations that are stuck in the lower leagues really compete for the talent they need to grow their nations? If capital has been increasingly accumulated in the top league countries, how can countries in the lower leagues access money to build the infrastructure needed to grow (and then keep the flows from the new infrastructure)? If lower league countries are still dependent on higher league countries for aid, trade or other support, how can we ever expect a level playing field where the lower league countries can fairly compete upwards without interference?

I am not sure of the answers to these questions but consider it sobering to think about how much stays the same even while so much changes, and to recognize that we may be in a bigger global development trap than we sometimes like to acknowledge.

The 30 richest countries in the world in 2040 will likely be the richest 30 countries in the world now, which were pretty much the richest thirty countries in the world in 1980. And so it goes on.   

 

 

 

Are we kidding ourselves with global treaties?

Readers of this blog and my other blog know that I think child and civil registration rates are a great governance indicator. They capture the degree to which governments count citizens. As some have said, citizens don't count until they are counted. This is also an indicator that captures one of the biggest governance gaps in the world. In September 1990 the United Nations introduced the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a solution to the fact that many governments were not exercising their authority to effectively protect and advance the interests of children (what I would call a governance failure). 96% of the world's countries have signed off on this treaty, as shown in this map (green shows parties to the convention). View this photo
The treaty includes the following article (7): "the child shall be registered immediately after birth and has the right to a name and nationality and to know and be cared for by his or her parents. The State shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with national law and its obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless." The interesting thing is that twenty years after the convention was signed many of the green countries on the map above are in the red when it comes to ACTUALLY REGISTERING KIDS. The governments are not exercising authority as they promised. The result: consider the data from a prior blog, showing the number of children under 14 who are not registered. (Based on population data in the World Development Indicators).http://matthewandrews.typepad.com/mattandrews/2012/10/b.html A country like Nigeria ratified the convention in 1991 but had over 40 million unregistered kids under 14 twenty years later. Similar for Pakistan and a range of others. The amazing thing is that these major gaps in the commitment exist AFTER a decade of MDG goals activity which included interventions focused on kids (education and health). Aren't we kidding ourselves when we accept a storyline about countries promising to register kids in 1990 and then not registering kids, but pretending to know how much education and health care is needed for kids and then (some of these countries) claiming success in providing that education and health care? If we want to have governance goals in post 2015 indicators we need to ensure that child and civil registration is one of these. And we should also make sure we close gaps between treaties that countries SAY they are party to but then do not ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT.

Evidence-based policy making – Missing the woods for the trees?

Guest post by Gulzar Natarajan, Harvard Kennedy School

 

There is no denying that evidence should inform public policy design. However, it may be a matter of debate as to what constitutes evidence and how it should inform the policy design process. There may also be a need to revisit the interpretation of “external validity” of research findings beyond its current locational - geographical, social, and cultural - context.

Conventional wisdom on evidence-based policy making predominantly views “evidence” as emerging from a process of scientific research. Even within research, in recent years there has been a trend to seek evidence from field experiments, preferably randomized control trials. This approach provides limited space for “priors”, especially those drawn from a source with “less than objective” underpinnings, in policy design. Indeed, in an ideal world the entire policy edifice should be constructed on the objectivity of experimentally exposed scientific wisdom.

External validity of experimental research is generally viewed in terms of its replicability in “other environments”. Critics of experimental research view this as its Achilles heel. But even before we come to other environments, there are concerns about its replicability within the same environment, when scaled up.

Can we afford the “luxury” of an ideal policy design, informed by rigorous experimental evidence? Is there no rigorous and objective enough process of consolidating “priors” in development research? More importantly, are “research findings” any more unbiased and objective than other sources of similar knowledge? Are the findings of a field experiment readily amenable to being scaled up, even in the same environment, without considerable dilution of its final effect?

Specifically, I have two important points for consideration. One, the process of experimental research driven evidence discovery overlooks the, often equally rigorous, evidential value of institutional knowledge latent in communities and public systems. Two, such research findings, especially experimental results, present sanitized outcomes, whose replication when scaled-up under less-sanitized, real-world conditions are questionable. Let me illuminate both these in some more detail.

The vast body of mightily impressive experimental research from the past two decades reveals several important insights, statistically rigorously validated, about the development process. But there is little by way of knowledge or insights that were not already available as institutional wisdom. Therefore, and especially given the huge amount of money and effort that has gone into obtaining this knowledge through experimental research, it is appropriate that we question as to whether the same could have been learnt in a more cost-effective manner from the latent institutional wisdom.

I see several benefits from a process of discovering institutional wisdom. One, it is likely to shorten the knowledge discovery cycle, besides lowering its cost. Second, unlike the fragmented nature of knowledge that emerges from the inherently restrictive, mostly single-issue based experimental research, a knowledge discovery process is more likely to reveal a more comprehensive and organic understanding of the underlying problem. Third, it is also likely to reconcile the dissonance between logical and theoretical consistency and implementational difficulties which characterize a large body of experimental research.

Fourth, the discovery of latent institutional knowledge through a consultative process would, by keeping the stakeholders involved, increase the likelihood of it being willingly embraced by them. This stands in contrast to the obvious disconnect between experimental research and its audience within public systems, which prevents its ready adoption. Fifth, this strategy is likely to create a body of replicable heuristics which can be used to reveal latent knowledge in different socio-economic settings. This becomes especially important given the highly context-specific nature of policy and implementation framework design, a reason that weakens the external validity of any experimental finding.

Sixth, the internal dynamics generated by such a process is itself likely to lay the “environmental” foundation for a successful scale-up. A social consultative process of unraveling latent knowledge typically generates unintended positive spill-overs that can potentially both weaken change opposing factors and strengthen administrative capability. Finally, an experimental research based knowledge discovery, which limits “priors”, opens up too many policy threads and becomes an exercise in the search for the ideal policy design. In contrast, a knowledge discovery process helps finalize a robust enough second-best policy framework design and leaves open those still uncertain threads to be identified or validated by experimental research.

The absence of any discussion about such a latent knowledge discovery process is surprising since deep-dive problem-solving through interviews, focus group discussions, observations, surveys, and so on, is the staple of modern consulting industry. If such evidence is rigorous enough for businesses before they undertake make-or-break investment decisions involving billions of dollars, why would they be any different for governments? And businesses use such evidence to decide on decisions involving human preferences and in aligning human incentives to their commercial interests.

How would the process of arriving at a strategy to sell cheap shampoo satchets to poor people be dramatically different from one for selling mosquito nets or chlorine tablets to the same category of people? Is the process of devising a strategy by private financial institutions to attract deposits of low income people any different from that aimed at increasing savings among the same people? For that matter, is there any radical difference between a commercial strategy to induce positive responses from the market at the “bottom of the pyramid” and one that seeks to get the same target group to respond to similar incentives for their own welfare?

This brings to my second concern about the extant methodology of experimental research. My concern arises from three directions. One, there is a big difference between implementing a program on a pilot basis for an experimental study and implementing the same on scale. In the former, the concentrated effort and scrutiny of the research team, the unwitting greater over-sight by the official bureaucracy, and the assured expectation, among its audience, that it would be only a temporary diversion, contributes to increasing the effectiveness of implementation. Two, is the administrative system capable of implementing the program so designed, on scale? Finally, there is the strong possibility that we will end up implementing a program or intervention that is qualitatively different from that conceived experimentally. 

It is one thing to find considerable increases in teacher attendance due to the use of time-stamped photographs or rise in safe water consumption from the use of water chlorination ampules when both are implemented over a short time horizon, in microscopic scale, and under the careful guidance and monitoring of smart, dispassionate, and committed research assistants. I am inclined to believe that it may be an altogether different experience when the same is scaled up over an entire region or country over long periods of time and with the “business as usual” minimal administrative guidance and monitoring. And all this is leaving aside its unanticipated secondary effects. In fact, far from implementing an intervention which is tailored based on rigorous scientific evidence, we may actually end up implementing a mutilated version which may bear little resemblance to the original plan when rolled out at the last mile.  

I believe that evidence-based research has a critical role to play in development policy design. But it should complement a process of discovering latent institutional knowledge, through something resembling a scientific problem- solving approach. Experimental research should be used to tie-up the loose ends that arise from the former exercise. A marriage of the two should be the way forward in evidence-based policy design.

The delusion (or deception) of MDGs and measurement

Last week I was involved in some discussions about post 2015 MDGs. In some meetings I was told that all indicators chosen must be measurable and must actually already be reliably measured. A sensible criteria, one might think.
But also one that is delusional or just plain deceptive. For people who have never visited the statistical offices in many developing countries it might sound plausible that reliable measures exist for things like GDP and infant mortality and access to schooling. And this belief gives a sense of legitimacy to the MDGs we have now.
But people who have visited statistical bureaus in many developing countries will tell you that the measures of these and many other concepts are fraught with problems. And should not be trusted in many cases.
Read Morten Jerven's poor numbers if you want a taste of this reality.
I wonder why we insist on pretending the measures and goals we use in MDGs pass the smell test, when in most cases they don't? Is it delusion or deception at work in the international community?

Culture, signaling and the transparency fad

I'm amazed at how much press the open government partnership is getting, and how many organizations are now working in the 'transparency' space, and how many countries are signing agreements to make their governments and private sectors transparent. Noble. And fantastic in theory. Especially for those who believe sunlight uncovers all ills and such. More transparency, less places to hide, more incentives to be above board, less corruption, greater openness, more engagement and participation, and a better world.
But has anyone tested if this theory holds? How many of the transparency commitments are fruitless signals that promise something they don't deliver?
The accounting literature has done work on this question. Looking at countries that commit to adopt international standards that require lots of disclosure and openness, various authors in this literature have found that implementation varies. And often it varies because a country has norms and values that support secrecy over transparency. My badly drawn diagram sums part of this work, showing that some countries are pro secrecy and conservatism (Latin countries and others) while some are pro transparency and optimism ( the USA UK and Nordics amongst others).
Interestingly we see the pro transparency countries as champions of the transparency agenda and various others forced to sign on. But a signature is just a signal, and if the accounting studies are anything to go by we should expect little more from this transparency agenda in many cases...
Read more (http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/22/EHEP0005/EHEP000522-2.pdf and http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228341933_Accounting_disclosure_in_companies_listed_on_the_Egyptian_Stock_Exchange/file/9fcfd50ccf70bd53ef.pdf and http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/09175.pdf)

The cost of post 2015 indicator consultations: Money well spent...or not?

I just googled post 2015 governance indicators to make sure I'm keeping up with all the latest on this topic. Wow. Lots and lots to catch up on. Meetings all over the world involving many many organizations and people, from the UN-this and the UN-that, development org-this and development-org that. Not to mention all the bilateral organizations (they can't miss out) and the independent consultants (who are usually not that independent, given the financing of their flights) and now and again some government officials from developing countries. Oh, I should not forget the Eminent Persons Groups, High Level Officials, and other 'most important people who we should listen to very carefully'.

What does all the meeting and negotiation and engagement and travel and dining and chatting and calling and skyping and videoconferencing and otherwise chinwagging cost?

And why is this cost acceptable?

Reading Morten Jerven's book on statistics in Africa (Poor Numbers) makes me think that BEFORE we spend loads of cash on these kinds of development-community-reinforcing-activities we should actually be financing better statistical processes in the developing world (so that if we do have global or regional or country level or local indicators they actually mean something).

But maybe I'm just in a Monday mood.

Limits getting good reviews: not quite the RedSox, but...

 

My friend Matt Crowley took the book all over New England this year. Here it makes a cameo appearance with a Red Sox cap. Great year it was for the Sox. It was a good year for the book too. Here are some academic review highlights:

Marco Cangiano from the IMF said the following in Public Budgeting and Finance:

"The record of institutional reforms undertaken by countries, developing or not, over the last 40 years is mixed at best. ProfessorAndrews’s insightful and timely book provides a systematic analysis of why many such reforms fail or deliver far less than initial expectations. Those who have been working in this field, either as academic, public official, or practitioners, will recognize much of their own experience and perhaps frustrations. By building on the work of many authors, multilateral institutions, and national governments, Andrews himself admits that in this area “very few ideas are new ideas.” But his book provides an analytical and interdisciplinary framework that for the first time brings together these old ideas in a new light while proposing a few new and thought provoking ones. In this respect, a better title would have been Beyond the limits of institutional reforms because this is really what this book is about. Incorporating Matt Andrews’ thinking and extensive hands-on experience in this area from both a practitioner’s as well as an academic’s point of view, the book distills and bridges the vast amount of literature that has emerged over the last two decades in the related—although not always mutually consistent—areas of institutional economics, public administration, and public financial management."

Agile theory and governance reform

I am going to be discussing iterative reform processes with my class in the coming weeks. I will obviously talk about PDIA but also about agile processes used in software development, and other theories. I like the following on agile reform processes. Maybe it's just the scrum approach that gets my attention… Note the importance of iteration, empirical analysis, rapid feedback, working in teams, and other aspects of PDIA.

http://agile.csc.ncsu.edu/SEMaterials/AgileMethods.pdf

see FCW http://fcw.com/articles/2013/07/15/agile-development-deliver.aspx

Software Development

Agile software: Stand and deliver

• By Kevin Parker
• Jul 15, 2013

  

  Agile software development places a strong emphasis on deliverables. (Stock image)

  In the 18th century, English highwaymen commanded us to stand and deliver. Three hundred years later, we don't have to be commanded; we just do it. At daily 10 a.m. agile stand-up meetings, one can find teams all over the federal government reporting on their deliverables and signing up for the next set.

  The move to agile methodologies is disruptive even in the most process- and methodologically mature organizations. Agile shifts control and visibility of the work being done closer to the doers and away from the managers. It changes the cadence of the delivery process and the size of the deliverables. It forces a new focus on priorities and changes the emphasis on requirements. Teams take a new look at how they test, how they integrate, how they release and how they deploy. Agile changes everything.

  And whether you are an agile advocate, an agile agnostic or an agile avoider, one thing is consistently true: Agile development places an emphasis on deliverables unlike any other methodology. That is good for software development and great for tracking in the federal contract environment.

  And what, exactly, is agile development? At its heart is the self-organizing team whose members approach the development task informed by organizational priorities. Those teams are drilled in measuring work effort in manageable units and disciplined by the daily routine of activities that are never more than 24 hours from review. Progress is tracked, and deviation from the project plan is detected within a day — then remediated by the team within their sprint window of two or three weeks.

  That focus on deconstructing the requirements into smaller and smaller chunks has a beneficial effect on our ability to keep to the contracted needs. It becomes very easy to track the delivery of the contracted deliverables, and we can do this very finely. Unexpected variances are easy to spot, and the detailed change orders that result also have a fine granularity of time and cost impact.

  But beware: Most agile teams like to manage what they do with the least amount of bureaucracy and the minimal use of tools. Part of the delight in using agile methods is the ability to escape from the boundaries of process, procedure, policy, practices and politics and do what is needed in whatever way makes the most sense to get the job done. For managers of agile teams, this is very hard to accept. The loss of direct visibility and the ability of the team to shift priorities and deliverables are sometimes too much for project management offices.

  The good news is that there are numerous tools on the market today that enhance agile teams' effectiveness. Many of the tools even take away some of the tasks that agile teams dislike doing, make agile something that can be effective even when the team is dispersed, and — of critical importance for federal projects — give managers the visibility they need to ensure that contracts are being complied with and deliverables are being met.

  The public does not want to stand in line to receive their services; now they want to access those services online from their smart phones. "Online not in line!" is the 21st century slogan. As consumers, we all expect the rate of change to be fast in our 24/7 mobile lives, and that means we have to reinvent federal IT to match. Embrace agile and see the team stand and deliver every day.

  About the Author

  Kevin Parker is vice president and chief evangelist at Serena Software.