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                                Commentary|BY TONY SCOTT
   Former U.S. CIO Tony Scott is now senior data privacy and cybersecurity adviser
at Squire Patton Boggs
law  rm.
The government’s reliance on custom solutions hampers its ability to control costs, modernize systems and better serve the public
  Kicking the addiction to custom code
During my tenure as federal CIO during the Obama administration, one of the things that shocked me most was the enormous amount of custom code that has been and continues to be written to support the federal government.
I wanted to understand why that was so and, more important, what could be done to change it because custom code is typically the most expensive option over time. That
is true for a variety of reasons, including the cost of maintaining
and supporting code that is
unique and often in a language for which it becomes dif cult to  nd programmers and support skills. In addition, the accelerating pace of business change often requires major rewrites of custom code.
It has become a standard refrain that “there is an app for that!” In most cases, there are multiple apps that
will satisfy the need. I believe the same is true for many of the federal government’s needs. Why then do we still do so much custom development?
When I dug into the issue, here are the reasons I discovered:
1. Shiny object syndrome. There is always a strong urge to use the latest and greatest technology or methodology, but the choice is often made before the ecosystem around the core technology has matured. Over time, better standardized tools, commercial applications
and scalable, reusable software components emerge for any new technology platform that is widely used. Adopting those tools can
save an organization a lot of money and time and often provide greater  exibility when business processes change.
A more modern approach is
to develop a solution using short “sprints” to deliver chunks of core business capabilities on standardized platforms, with explicit business outcomes as the guiding force. Yet being “agile” or having a “product
Although important differences exist for many federal functions, no agency is unique in all its requirements or business operations.
management” approach (some “shiny object syndrome” buzzwords) doesn’t mean agencies need to write a lot of custom code, and it does not remove the need for planning and management.
2. A belief in unique requirements. Although real and important differences exist for many federal functions, I’ve yet to  nd an agency that is 100 percent unique
in all its requirements or business operations. So why not use readily available capabilities or products from established commercial suppliers that have solid government experience and demonstrated
expertise for the activities that are not unique (the 80 percent solution) and instead focus on the mission- differentiating activities where custom code can make a difference?
Doing so would greatly speed
the time to market and improve the overall functionality of government applications.
3. Over-speci cation. Custom software code often comes about because agencies are overly speci c about the capabilities they want
in a systems procurement effort.
In some situations, such detailed requirements can only be satis ed through custom code. I can’t tell
you how many times I’ve seen speci cations for new applications that describe in detail the way the old system worked (which was based on custom code), with some added bells and whistles.
On the other hand, some of the best implementations came about because the design team and the sprint implementation teams used well-known commercial and open- source solutions to do the “heavy lifting” work in the background and focused their design efforts on the point at which customers interact with the application.
The fastest speed to solution, lowest lifetime cost and best customer experience are optimally delivered by restricting custom software development to the rarest of cases. CIOs should carefully consider that when deciding
how to modernize their agencies’ capabilities. n
      12 January/ February 2018 FCW.COM

































































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