Page 10 - FCW, June 15, 2016

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WHAT: “Managing Risk, Improv- ing Results: Lessons for Improv- ing Government Management from GAO’s High-Risk List,” by the IBM Center for the Business of Government.
WHY: Since 1990, the Govern- ment Accountability Office has highlighted federal agencies that are imperiled by waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. IBM’s study offers a checklist for agencies to get off the High Risk List and stay off.
According to the study, inad- equate and aging IT systems are a soft spot. However, strong IT systems can be bridges to other agencies and can help strength- en the organization.
Some areas are high risk because agencies don’t have enough skilled employees to manage the problems at hand. Ineffective contract manage- ment can drag an agency down, and weak financial management leads to exploding costs and extended delays.
Cybersecurity, federal infor- mation systems, privacy issues and the sharing of terrorism- related information are all complex and interrelated, and therefore are inherently hard to manage, the study states.
VERBATIM: “The high-risk list is not a sentence to eter- nal criticism. Rather, when seen through the lens of the root causes that got these programs on the list, it is a piercing analysis of the big challenges facing 21st- century government.”
FULL REPORT:
is.gd/FCW_highrisklist
6% in a Socrata survey said their agency does the minimum legally
required in providing open data
FITARA scorecard 2.0 shows room for improvement
10 June 15, 2016 FCW.COM
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released its second Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act scorecard in May, and although many agencies fared better, none received stellar marks.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), chairman of the committee’s IT Subcommittee, said technology’s potential to revolu- tionize government has yet to be real- ized, but the latest round of grades show that agencies are “moving the needle in the right direction.”
Of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies governed by FITARA, seven scored higher, one lower and 16 had no grade change between the first and second scorecards, said Dave Powner, director of IT management issues at the Government Accountability Office.
NASA, which was one of three agen- cies to receive an F on the first score- card, was the only failing agency this time around.
In written testimony, NASA CIO Renee Wynn said, “We have work to do and challenges to overcome.” She pledged improvements, primarily based on the continued use of NASA’s Busi- ness Services Assessment process.
In addition, she said ties between her office and top NASA leaders are
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closer than ever. “I now report directly to the administrator and can talk to him whenever I want,” Wynn said.
The General Services Administration was the only agency to decline, slip- pingfromaBtoaCthankstoweak progress on data center consolidation, while the Energy Department rose from an F to a C-minus.
The highest score went to the Com- merce Department, which received a B overall but As for data center consolida- tion and risk assessment transparency.
Commerce CIO Steve Cooper cred- ited an aggressive embrace of FITARA’s principles for the department’s suc- cess. It is one of only a few agencies to appoint a full-time FITARA staffer, and new policies have put him in charge of reviewing all projects worth $10 mil- lion or more.
Powner said not enough CIOs report directly to their agency’s secretary or deputy secretary, and he has seen a “mixed bag” of CFO responses to FIT- ARA implementation.
“Some CFOs are worried about los- ing power,” Powner said, adding that without coordination between the two, CIOs won’t be able to help the agency make good spending decisions.
— Zach Noble