VA vs. GAO

When the Government Accountability Office beats up a federal department or agency, the response is usually formal and polite, sort of like a pair of awkward teenagers forced unwillingly onto a dance floor.

Not so in the case of the latest report GAO released on Wednesday on the VA's Post-9/11 G.I. Bill claims processing system.

The report, prepared by Valerie Melvin, the agency's director for information management and human capital issues, skewers Veterans Affairs for its lack of full adherence to a software process called agile development, which deploys software and functionality in chunks on an iterative basis.

VA CIO Roger Baker took issue with the draft report he received in early November, and fired off a letter to Melvin suggesting GAO needed to do some homework on agile development.

Baker told Melvin that "because agile methodologies are not broadly used in the federal government, this may have been the first exposure the GAO team performing this audit had to do to this methodology." Baker added, "Limited exposure to agile methodology possibly caused GAO to present incorrect assumptions as fact."

Melvin, in the final report, returned fire, and said GAO not only had an understanding of agile development -- and here we get deep into the process -- but had on its audit team a genuine agile development ScrumMaster and consulted with a agile Scrum trainer.

I don't want to dive too deep into all of this, but an agile Scrum is like a rugby team -- minus the head butting -- and ScrumMasters make it happen.

So maybe Melvin and Baker should form rugby teams and have it out on the fields near the Bureau of Engraving and Printing on 14th Street.