Agile Investment - Proof Of Concept (PoC) Checklist

During the PoC Phase:

• Agile Scrum team is assigned to implement and test solution recommendation
• Provide and measure outcome of PoC team
• Review PoC recommendation
• Business / technical review to approve/reject progressing to next Phase

Input Checklist Before Starting PoC

Scope and Approach

• PoC scope is defined
• High-level business needs have been identified and prioritized
• High-level technical needs and requirements have been identified and prioritized
• Approach for PoC phase had been defined

People and Resources

• Sponsoring Department/Executive has been defined
• Key personnel resources and skill sets identified and secured
• Assigned Product Owner from the Business Team
• Assigned Scrum Master
• Agile coaching support and guidance
• Team members are fully dedicated to the PoC effort

Development Environment

• Development environment setup completed (e.g. test/dev environment, production, etc.)
• Access requirements identified, requested and setup completed

PoC Output Checklist

PoC Success Criteria

• Measures of success for PoC have been met and accepted by stakeholders
• Recommendation for Prototype phase developed
• Key personnel resources and skill requirements identified
• Process approach is defined
• Prototype Scope is defined
• High-level business features have been identified and prioritized
• High-level technical features and requirements have been identified and prioritized

Sample Technical Considerations for Next Phase Recommendations

Existing Solutions and Systems

• Has it been specified if the solution requested is a feature fix or capability enhancement on an existing platform?
• Has it been determined if the capability will reside in a solution that is GSA-internal or managed by an external vendor
• Specify if it will reside on a current GSA IT platform that is up for contract renegotiation
• Has it been determined if Solution is cloud based, if not, will it need to integrate with an application maintained in Cloud Services or on premise services?

Software

• Has solution languages, tools and applications been determined e.g. web, mobile, core SW languages (Java, Python), Open source/public code, etc.?
• Has it been specified if the solution requested is a service or solution IaaS, PaaS or SaaS?

Data

• Has the type of data the solution will work with been identified? (e.g. No Data, Structured Data OR/AND Unstructured Data)
• Has the condition of the data been specified (Format - JSON, XML, Excel, CSV, etc. Data size, frequency of capture, current storage)?

Security

• Has it been determined if PII or Payment Card Information (e.g. credit card numbers) will be stored in the system?
• Has it been stated if the solution should leverage Single Sign-on (SSO). If yes, have the applicable GSA IT platforms or applications identified?

Environment and Integration

• Has the list of other applications the solution requires to interface/integrate with been identified? (e.g. GSA IT platforms, Vendor platforms, etc.)
• Have integration requirements with a third-party application, another system within GSA, and/or a system outside GSA? If yes, have applications been listed?

Network

• Specify if the system is assessed through GSA network only or through outside network
• Has required access been identified, requested and setup completed?