Weekly Roundup: September 14-18, 2020

Submitted by on Fri, 09/18/2020 - 12:52

Six More Months. Government Executive reports: “A majority of federal employees currently working from home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic do not expect to return to the office any time soon, according to a new survey, with 60% saying they expect to remain in their current posture for at least another six months.”

Evolution of Federal Financial Management Reforms

Submitted by on Wed, 09/16/2020 - 09:45

For 22 of the 24 largest federal agencies, they’ve achieved that status. Two agencies remain in financial statement purgatory – the Departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development. Until they can meet muster with their auditors, the governmentwide financial statement will remain incomplete, as well.

The requirement to produce agency and governmentwide financial statements, and have them audited, stems from the early 1990s. At that time, no one had a clue how hard it would be to complete a “clean” or “unqualified” audit opinion.

 

Part 8 – Distance Work: A Three Generation Perspective

Submitted by on Tue, 09/15/2020 - 10:18

[Note: This column also appears in Washington Technology. It is the eighth in a series on how the COVID-19 crisis has changed how government works. Sheri Fields and Michaela Drust, IBM, contributed as co-authors of this column.]

Dr. Donald Rucker

Submitted by on Mon, 09/14/2020 - 09:56

Dr. Don Rucker, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, comes to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) from the Ohio State University where he was Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine and Biomedical Informatics and Premise Health, a worksite clinic provider, where he served as Chief Medical Officer.

Weekly Roundup: September 7 - 11, 2020

Submitted by on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 11:14

Frictionless Data-Mashing. NextGov reports: “The IRS is using its relatively new, quickturn procurement vehicle—Pilot IRS—to support a governmentwide data collection effort in support of fixing pain points in the government’s acquisition process. . . .

Successful Adoption of Intelligent Automation in Government: The Case of the DHS Procurement Innovation Lab

Submitted by on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 14:50

Pressure to do more with less, improve efficiency and reduce cost while meeting citizen needs is challenging government agencies. Intelligent Automation (IA) meets this challenge by transforming work while enabling the workforce to perform more effectively and efficiently.  Powered by artificial intelligence (AI) as part of an integrated platform -- which also includes Robotics Process Automation (RPA), analytics, process management, and digital strategy – IA can improve how federal agencies operate internally and serve customers externally.

Leading the Public Buildings Service

Submitted by on Wed, 09/09/2020 - 18:02

As the largest public real estate organization in the United States, the General Services Administration's Public Buildings Service owns or leases 8,700 assets and maintains an inventory of 371 million square feet of rentable workspace. Within this inventory, PBS has more than 500 owned and leased historic properties.

Tim Paydos

Submitted by on Tue, 09/08/2020 - 17:19

Tim has spent 22 years at IBM working mostly in the Government industry, though not contiguously—he left briefly in 1999 to try his hand at a startup, catching the dotcom implosion at just the right time before rejoining IBM three years later.

Phase III: The essential role of government in response to COVID-19

Submitted by on Tue, 09/08/2020 - 17:08

Around that time, I published the first in a series of blogs that sought to break down government response efforts into logical and digestible phases to help leaders organize their approach. The Phase I immediate response was all about emergency management and business continuity. This phase started with providing advanced analytics to track the virus and predict where it was going next.

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