The truth is that nothing is purely custom software, and nothing is purely COTS. There is, instead, a continuum, and it’s a short one.

Agencies preparing IGCEs for custom software projects nearly all make the same mistake: basing the cost of software projects on past, similar software projects.

When government agencies need to have custom software built, as a matter of course they require that the bidding vendors have built that exact thing before. This is a mistake.

For the past few years, the supermajority of my writing here has been about Agile procurement. It would be tedious to provide the same disclaimer every time, so I want to offer a blanket disclaimer here: this guidance is not for everybody. In fact, it’s for an extremely small audience! My guidance is for employees […]

Government must never outsource control, and that's exactly what you're doing by holding an Agile vendor to a deadline.

For custom software projects, IV&V is almost always useless. But there is a model where IV&V can be useful.