Weekly Roundup: March 27 – April 7, 2017

John Kamensky

Warner Letter re: DATA Act. Federal News Radio reports: “Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent letters to 24 chief financial officer agencies on Friday, urging leadership to “prioritize efforts” to comply with the Digital Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act. . . . Warner, an original backer of the DATA Act, asked five questions to agency leaders about their progress toward the May 2017 implementation deadline.”

Defense Innovation Board Focuses on Data. Federal News Radio reports: “The Defense Innovation Board . . . . which is made up of some of the most successful business minds in the tech world, might approve a recommendation to create a one-stop shop for the Pentagon’s gigantic collection of data.

Attrition Planning, Part 1. Government Executive reports, that while little is known about upcoming plans to reduce the size of the federal workforce, it does note that: “In 2011, when he was a congressman, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney introduced the Reducing the Size of the Federal Government Through Attrition Act. The measure would have required federal agencies to fill just one vacancy for every three employees who left. The goal of the bill, which was approved in committee but never received a vote on the House floor, was to cut the size of the federal workforce by 10 percent over five years.”

Attrition Planning, Part 2. Joe Abusamra, writing for FCW, states: “Given the ongoing, pending and potential shifts, federal human capital leaders should look to make adjustments that will effectively align their agency's strategies -- especially those impacting performance management -- to the likely near- and long-term future direction. Here's a 10-step plan to do just that.”

VA’s Listening Problem. NextGov notes that the Department of Veterans Affairs has historically had problems communicating with veterans, with over 1,000 websites and 950 call centers. Encouragingly: “Last week, VA announced the introduction of new customer relations management and survey software that will enable veterans to provide real-time feedback to the agency regardless of their location, device or communications medium.”

Create a Positive Emotional Experience. FedScoop reports: “White House official Chris Liddell shared a vision Tuesday for modernizing citizen services through the use of data analytics and incremental innovation, while improving cybersecurity and government technology. . . Liddell said his conceptualization of modernized government services focuses on three things: world-class citizen services, a top analytics platform and cybersecurity.”

Low-Cost Program Evaluations. An op-ed by Andy Feldman and Benjamin Castleman in Government Executive asks: “. . . how can agencies do the most good with their limited evaluation dollars? They need to get savvy about low-cost evaluation strategies.” They then detail out several strategies that are particularly effective.

White House Office of American Innovation. President Trump on Monday announcedthe creation of a new office to lead government reform initiatives. Following are articles describing it further, and commentary on its potential directions:

• Bringing Business Innovation to Government(Government Executive)

• Need to Understand Government First (Government Executive)

• Steps to be Successful (Washington Post)

• Lessons from History of Past Reforms (The Atlantic)

• Trump’s Innovation and SWAT Teams (Federal Times)

Michael Keegan

General: Cyber Command needs new platform before NSA split. U.S. Cyber Command should be elevated to a full combatant command as soon as possible, the head of Strategic Command told Congress, but it cannot be separated from the NSA until it has its own cyber platform.

Information sharing is complicated, even inside government. "There's always some tension between DHS threat mitigation and law enforcement threat response and prosecution" when it comes to sharing data on cyber intrusions at companies and other cyber incidents, said John Felker, director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.

Hierarchy in organizations: when it helps, when it hurts. Steve Kelman suggests that managers must consider what types of work their teams are really doing.

10 steps to address the federal hiring freeze. Agency human capital leaders must adjust their performance management plans to reflect the changes President Trump is promising.

DLA goes virtual. The Defense Logistics Agency is in the midst of an ambitious campaign to eliminate its IT infrastructure and transition to using exclusively shared, hosted and virtual services.

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This Week’s The Business of Government Radio Show.
What is the Food and Drug Administration’s IT strategy? How is FDA changing the way it does IT? What is FDA doing to leverage the advances of mobile technologies? Join host Michael Keegan next week as he explores these questions and more with Todd Simpson, Chief Information Officer, at the US Food and Drug Administration.

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.