IT

Participants shared keen insights and perspectives about success factors, lessons learned, and areas where further thinking and research would benefit government.

In a post yesterday, I shared the first three themes that emerged from the discussion. Today's post addresses the next three themes: Budgeting and buying cloud services Building security in the cloud Developing skilled personnel Budgeting and buying cloud services. Government is still in the early stages of understanding how to budget for the cloud, and purchase cloud services under existing procurement rules and norms.

U.S. CIO Tony Scott: OMB's draft FITARA guidance aims to advance IT reform. OMB released the much-anticipated guidance to reform how agencies buy and manage information technology for public comments. The comment period will remain open until May 30, but federal CIO Tony Scott, in an exclusive Federal News Radio interview, said OMB wants to move on the comments and refinements with a sense of urgency. DHS' Unity of Effort seeds the roots of change. The joint requirements council is one of the best examples of just how much the Homeland Security Department has changed over the last year.

OMB conducted a broad set of internal and external outreach meetings to draft the guidance, and is now taking comments on that draft. OMB strongly encourages substantive comments to be sent today to allow for careful consideration of early feedback. This process could be a model for OMB guidance in other areas. Congress passed the FITARA statute in December 2014, as Sections 831-837 of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Information technology has made possible the availability of real-time data and the tools to display that data, such as dash­boards, scorecards, and heat maps. This has boosted the use of data and evidence by government decision makers in meeting their agency and program missions. But what about the use of performance metrics by agency chief information officers themselves? Background. Typically, CIOs have a good inventory of metrics regarding the performance of their technical infrastructure, such as server down time.

John Kamensky IT Acquisition Gets “Killer Apps.” According to Federal News Radio, GSA has posted several “killer apps” that acquisition officers can use to speed IT-related purchases “An automated contract finder and cost calculator are just two of the tools GSA leadership touted as reasons why the government acquisition community should explore the online portal and provide feedback, said Laura Stanton, acting assistant commissioner for GSA’s Office of Strategy Management.” Predicting the Unpredictable.

The scenario: A House government oversight subcommittee chairman and ranking member have a strong interest in how agencies are managing technology, in light of a new law that gives agency CIOs more leverage over operations. The subcommittee leaders ask the Government Accountability Office to assess agency performance in key areas, and the subcommittee then takes the assessment and assigns grades that come back with far more Ds and Fs than As and Bs.