Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

by Jennifer Pahlka

Waterfall development is still very much alive and well, particularly in government. But most of the software that has changed the world around us in the past two decades was not made this way.

For people stuck in waterfall frameworks, data is not a tool in their hands. It’s something other people use as a stick to beat them with.

Today’s hottest tech employers promise work-life balance and flexible schedules. Ironically, it’s the public sector, with its “Marge Simpson’s sisters” image problem, where these kinds of unsustainable heroics are necessary.