Dan Chenok

This blog was written by our guest blogger: Chris Trainor

As announced by OMB last Thursday and widely reported since then, the Obama Administration has issued an implementation strategy for IT reform over the next 18 months.  Much attention has been focused on key elements of the plan, including using budget authority to change or stop major IT systems, incentives for modular development of technology, improved communications among stakeholders across government and with industry and the establishment of program management as a profession; I

OPM leads the Federal Government's efforts to improve strategic human capital management.  OPM focuses on building a professional civil service based on merit principles, where Federal employees can effectively serve the public throughout the employment life cycle – while also receiving benefits and services from “hire to retire” that are consistent with best practices.  That effort continues today as OPM embarks on a new initiative to integrate HR offerings and HR data sets across the Government.

Experience from industry practices and industry research regarding personnel security provide interesting insights and lessons learned for government to consider.   These findings emerged from a recent roundtable discussion held in November and co-hosted by the IBM Center for The Business of Government and the National Academy of Public Administration.  The roundtable intended to help identify commercial benchmarks that can inform government choices.

We are pleased to announce our latest round of awards for new reports on key public sector challenges, which respond to priorities identified in the Center's research agenda. Our content is intended to stimulate and accelerate the production of practical research that benefits public sector leaders and managers.

We expect the following reports to be published later in 2017.  Short summaries of each report follow:

This week, FCW announced the list of winners of the 2017 Federal 100 Awards. For nearly three decades, the Fed 100 has recognized many impactful leaders who made a significant impact in federal IT during the previous year – the list highlights change agents in and with government who make a difference in how IT can drive mission performance and operational efficiency.

Blog Co-Authors:  Tim Cooke, CEO of ASI Government and Steve Kelman, Weatherhead Professor of Public Management at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Cognitive Category Management (CCM) has the potential to drive $340 billion in value for the federal government. Category Management has been a proven capability for leading commercial companies to unlock significant ongoing savings. However, the complexity and autonomy of federal agencies present challenges that have limited the federal government from taking advantage of these proven practices. Recent advances in cognitive tools and digital services help bridge these challenges by offering insights into unstructured data and simplifying the process for government.

In my previous blog post, I discussed category management, cognitive, and how these two tools can be used to provide value in the federal government. By reviewing best practices in the private sector as well as initial pilots in the federal government, transformation is possible. 

The IT Reform policies announced by OMB Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra two weeks ago continue to have an impact on the IT community and beyond.  Their strategy drew in good measure from government and industry recommendations, one of the most prominent of which was a study by the TechAmerica Foundation, entitled “Government Technology Opportunity in the 21^st Century” (www.techamericafoundation/gto21) (I served as an advisor to the Commission).