Weekly Round-up: December 07, 2012

Dan Chenok

• Strategic Sourcing on the rise in agencies, as required by OMB:
• Promoting information sharing through standards-based acquisition:
• Two House leaders look to the future of IT in agencies:

John Kamensky

• Do WE Do This Right? The Washington Post reports that China’s new leadership has declared that meetings should be short and to the point and officials are to use plain language when they communicate. Why, we have laws with governance structures, measures, and reports that require the use of plain language! We found that simple decrees and modeling by leaders doesn’t seem to work! Maybe they need to hire Annetta Cheek!
• The PLUM Book Is Out! Every four years, the government publishes a report after each presidential election that lists all of the 8,000 political . . .
• What Happens Next? The government needs to create an institutional capacity, starting at the top, in the White House, to think 5 or 10 or more years down the road, instead of just the next crisis, says a new report, Anticipatory Governance: Practical Upgrades, by Leon Fuerth at George Washington University’s Project on Forward Engagement.
• A Repeat GAO Report. GAO periodically issues a report on the benefits of replacing the $1 bill with the reviled $1 coin (which is what most other developed nations have done). GAO calculates the government would save $4 billion over the next 30 years by doing this (which is what most other developed nations have done). This GAO report is regularly followed by another GAO report on eliminating the penny, which costs 2 cents to produce. That could save money too (which most other developed nations have done).

Michael Keegan

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As move to mobile grows, federal workforce adapts to new normal: The federal workforce is mobile and there is no going back. Agencies are changing their standards, architecture and policies to support working from anywhere at any time with secure access through any device. It’s the new normal. Federal News Radio, in a special series, “Gov 3.0: It’s Mobile“, pulls specific examples from various agencies’ energy, effort and planning they’ve done to create a secure, device-agnostic mobile IT platform.

IT reform bill would cull the CIO herd, give them more power: By one count, there are 243 people across the government with a title of chief information officer on their business cards. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said it seems to be a case of too many chefs spoiling the IT soup. The proliferation of CIOs throughout government is one culprit behind failed federal IT projects. To make the system work, he said, each agency needs a single CIOwith more authority and more gravitas. He said all those chiefs is a basic contravention of the ideas behind the Clinger-Cohen Act, which created CIOs in the first place in 1996.

GSA, ISE begin work on creating a standards-based acquisition process: The law enforcement community’s approach to information sharing has gone viral. Dozens of federal agencies, state governments and international governments are making the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) the standard for secure information sharing.

Federal retirement claims fall last month but OPM predicts swell in January: The Office of Personnel Management received fewer retirement claims in November than in any month since February this year, according to new data from the agency. But this is likely just the calm before the storm, according to OPM projections, which anticipate a wave of retirement claims in January.

Bueniess of Government

The Business of Government Radio Show: Conversation with Authors: The Costs of Budget Uncertainty: Analyzing the Impact of Late Appropriations

Federal News Radio 1500-AM
Mondays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays at 12 p.m.

The Business of Government Hour features a conversation about management with a government executive who is changing the way government does business. The executives discuss their careers and the management challenges facing their organizations.

How does federal budgetary uncertainty impact government agencies and other sectors? What is the affect on the efficiency and effectiveness of government? Are we facing a fiscal cliff or slope? We will explore these questions and much more with Professor Phil Joyce, author of the new IBM Center report, The Costs of Budget Uncertainty: Analyzing the Impact of Late Appropriations.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday, Dacember 10, at 11 a.m., and Wednesday, December 12, at noon, 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 and by searching our audio archives.