Weekly Roundup: August 16 - 19, 2016

Reforming the Budget Process.  Many of the key elements in the federal budget process have not been re-examined in a half a century.  Senate budget committee chair has made the case for fixing a broken process and proposes a set of 10 recommendations. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget analyzes these recommendations and provides context 

GAO Tech Readiness Guide. According to NextGov, the Government Accountability Office has released a "Technology Readiness Assessment" guide, “designed to walk agencies through that evaluation process, so they can decide how to apportion money and time to technology development projects likely to transition into real-world applications.”

Challenge.gov takes off.  According to Digital Gov, there has been: “A huge surge in the use of challenges across the government. More agencies over the past year are using the challenge.gov platform to run competitions. And these agencies are getting more creative too. The Office of Science and Technology Policy issued its fiscal 2015 report on the use of prizes and competitions. In it, OSTP says more than 700 challenges from more than 100 agencies were listed on the site. Between 2010 and 2015, 72 agencies held 396 challenges. Agencies used a majority of the challenges in 2015 to solve a specific problem or develop technology. The Energy Department and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency handed out the largest dollar prizes of $10 million and $6.6 million respectively.” And in a blog on FCW, Steve Kelman also lauds the progress of the effort.

DOD on Improving Program Execution.  In an article in Defense News, former DOD Controller Bob Hale writes: “In February 2017 current law requires that DoD establish a new under secretary for business management and information. Improving execution management should be one focus for the new office.”  He says that this should include integrating cost and performance information so true performance-informed budgeting decisions could be made.

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Next Week’s The Business of Government Radio Show.  What are benefits of pursuing enterprise risk management? How can risk management enhance department decision-making? How are you fostering a culture of risk awareness across an enterprise? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Dr. Karen Hardy, Deputy Director for Risk Management at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday at 11 a.m., and Friday at 1 p.m. on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED.

If you can't wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week's program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org.