Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit Las Vegas 2024

Over the last 10 years 18F has has led and assisted in dozens of technology acquisitions for government partners seeking digital transformation.

It’s common that government buyers think of only two ways of interacting with a vendor: “hands-off” or “collaboration.” However, these words oversimplify how technology teams can and should interact. Well-designed team interactions can dramatically improve effectiveness, but badly-designed interactions may lead to frustration or failure.

Sourcing business models and Team Topologies offer new languages for interaction, and these can help us select better ways of working, depending on circumstances. These frameworks also can help diagnose structural problems, using team interactions as indicators of issues with team or contract boundaries.

This talk takes a retrospective look at various government technology projects. We'll make sense of the opportunities and challenges in this new frame and draw lessons for people on both sides of technology procurement.