Using Scrum in Outsourced Government Projects: An Action Research

The growth in popularity of Agile methods plus a dissatisfaction of Government agencies with traditional software development methods have stimulated the adoption of Agile Methods. The action research approach was used in this work to assess the implementation of a process for the Management of Agile Development Demands - whose original acronym in Portuguese is 'GeDDAS' - for a software factory in a Brazilian Federal Government Organisation. There, two-action research cycles were done with two pilot projects. The work of action research was effective and contributed to the successful outcome of the initiative. The implementation of agile approaches in a public organisation is slow and complex affair mainly due to the interferences made in the working environment of the companies involved and to a high staff turnover. In the end, the difficulties found and lessons learned in the process, as well as the results achieved are presented.