Imagine a world where your government shared alpha and beta releases of their projects and policies with the interested and affected public. All of which were updated every week or two based on relevant feedback from the users.

Now that’s representative democracy I could stand behind.

There’s a reason I love getting to know policy geeks, web/software developers, active citizens, and dreamers: they’re the people who tend to have fantastic ideas for where society should go — and they also tend to start the ball rolling.

I had the good fortune of meeting a ton of these people at this past weekend’s ChangeCamp. And, in my discussions over the course of the day, I came to realize how significant agile programming methods could be in the political and social realm. (And yes, I know what I’m about to describe isn’t entirely “agile”, but I like to think that it stays close enough to the spirit of the process)

Imagine, if you will, a government that publicly acknowledged — and thrived on — its likelihood to make mistakes. One that focused more on putting something out in a timely fashion for its people (and smoothing out the kinks later) than on perfecting every solution. One that used its representatives almost entirely as  mechanisms for feedback that will be quickly taken to heart.

Imagine how much quicker we would get our answers. Imagine how many more people would be actively involved with their government. Imagine (in Canada, at least) how many more people would start voting for their MPs, not for their PM.

How much faster could you be if you shifted your focus from perfection to iteration? Is it worth the potential sacrifice in performance?

Even Evolution seems to have taken the agile route — as Gary Marcus argues in his book Kluge — with our minds (and not just our bodies). And, while I’m sure my memory could be better, I know that it was at least successful enough to let me share these thoughts with you — and let you share your comments with me.