The General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F digital services unit has released a field guide to help federal agencies mitigate cyber risks in their systems. The federal field guide covers various topics related to cyber strategy development including planning, acquisition and execution.
According to the guide, agencies must first ensure product owners’ capacity to monitor control over outsourced platforms and services.
Agencies must also involve more government end-users in the Agile software development process, evaluate tradeoffs in commercial off-the-shelf technology implementation and provide personnel access to a standardized set of remote collaboration platforms, the guide states.
Other recommendations include executing incremental technology deployment and developing a budget strategy for risk mitigation prototyping efforts.
“Instead of making large, risky investments in major software programs years in advance, agencies should apply Agile principles to break up those larger, monolithic projects into smaller, incremental budget allocations,” according to the report.
“Taking a modular approach compartmentalizes failures, reduces the risk of failure, and brings the size of projects below the threshold for greater agency oversight.”
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