In an attempt to reduce duplicating government IT and software resources, the US federal government recently announced the “Federal Source Code” policy, which requires new custom-developed source code used by federal agencies to be made available for sharing and reuse government-wide.

Unlike waterfall, where people had to do their best to explain the value of automation, agile more naturally promotes that need for these tools through its rapidity and integration of testing throughout the development process. Agile assumes automation is the key ingredient of your mission strategy.

Adopting open source tools isn’t a seamless, pain-free process. The benefits can be invaluable, but it’s important to note that most companies moving from packaged tools into the open source world often go through a technology shock. It takes the right people, processes, and planning to succeed.