The Office of Systems Integration is looking for an agile development chief to lead the Child Welfare Digital Services project, it was announced on Friday.
The project modernizes a 20-year-old system by dividing the work into modules, which contractors can bid on and then build in an iterative fashion.
Vendor teams work in two-week intervals that include daily update meetings and user feedback. The project focuses on open source software with user-centered design.
“Other states are watching as we use open source code as a public good that can be freely copied by government agencies and the public at large,” said Peter Kelly, chief deputy director for the Office of Systems Integration.
Vendors were pre-approved for an agile pool and because they have already been vetted, other agencies have borrowed from the pool, modifying it to fit department specific needs.
“All eyes are on this demonstration project, California’s first major effort using agile methodologies which represents a fundamental shift in the way state government approaches technology,” Office of Systems Integration Director John Boule wrote in a press release.
The foster home approval and licensing system construction is already underway while other modules such as a replacement for the county child protective services casework management system and a system to integrate the legacy system and the modern, module based work are still underway.
“Case workers need modern, effective tools that allow them to spend more time in the field protecting children and less time in an office, in front of a computer,” Boule also wrote.
