TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

Do you know a federal manager who recently took risks to push through a bold idea, policy or program that uses technology to make government work better or improve public services? If so, we'd like to hear your story by nominating your colleague for a Nextgov Award.

The Nextgov Award program, developed in partnership with O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, will recognize government executives who stepped outside their comfortable confines to think and manage differently. They acted boldly to push through an innovative program, policy or new management practice that relied on technology to move government in a new direction, to challenge employees to think and work differently, and that ultimately improved the lives of citizens.

We know there are many managers who have done just that, and we want you to tell us about them by nominating them for a Nextgov Award. The deadline is March 12, but we suggest you don't wait. Visit the nomination page and spend just a few minutes filling out the form. We'll tell the stories of the winners later this spring on Nextgov.

A panel of respected judges will make choose the winners, who will be honored at a luncheon on May 27 at the Gov 2.0 Expo at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The expo is co-sponsored by O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, and Nextgov is the premier media sponsor.

The government announced on Thursday that IBM U.S. Federal has won a $74.4 million dollar contract to consolidate disparate systems that track contractor performance. The reconfiguration is intended to make it easier for federal acquisition workers to monitor the purchase of equipment, supplies, information technology and telecommunications services governmentwide, according to the General Services Administration, the agency that awarded the contract.

The consolidated databases "will also improve transparency of the process by providing the public with a single, comprehensive source for contracting data from all levels of government," said Michael Robertson, associate administrator of governmentwide policy.

But not all of the databases slated for the system are currently accessible to the public, according to contracting industry officials. For example, the public Web site FedBizOpps allows the public and vendors to search through solicitations, but the Past Performance Information Retrieval System, which rates the work of contractors, is only accessible to contractors and federal officials.

The potential eight-year, fixed-price contract would meld nine acquisition databases to support a GSA initiative called the integrated acquisition environment. The envisioned environment is aimed at improving the procurement process by increasing efficiencies and collaboration among government buyers and sellers, according to GSA officials.

Northrop Grumman, Vertex Information and Computer Consulting Services Inc. and Collins Consulting Inc. are the subcontractors on the project, according to an IBM press release.

The nine databases pegged for the system include:

FedBizOpps -- publicly posts solicitations over $25,000, enabling vendors to search and compete for financial opportunities in the federal government.

Wage Determinations Online -- provides Service Contract Act and Davis-Bacon wage determinations to the contracting community.

Central Contractor Registration -- validates vendors who want to do business with the government.

Federal Agency Registration - is accessibly only to government workers and publishes information about federal organizations that buy and sell from other federal entities.

Online Representations and Certifications Application -- allows vendors to update, annually, representations and certifications for use with all federal contracts.

Past Performance Information Retrieval System - is accessible only to contractors and government officials and stores information on the quality of work that contractors provided to the government on prior occasions.

Excluded Parties List System - identifies vendors that are barred from obtaining awards.

Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation - displays data on contracting actions to the public

Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System - enables prime contractors to update the government on work that is supposed to be conducted by subcontractors.

Nextgov has launched the Nextgov Awards, an inaugural program to recognize federal managers who have shepherded a program, policy or management practice that is not only innovative, but bold and brave.

Yes, we know, there are a lot of awards programs in government. But when we asked federal managers and industry executives what is missing, they told us unanimously: No awards recognize federal employees who took on risks -- personal, political and otherwise -- and boldly acted to see their idea to fruition. Or if their idea died, at least they took on entrenched bureaucratic interests in an attempt to make government better through the use of technology.

We invite you to visit our awards page to learn more and to nominate someone who fits the criteria. The technology isn't the reason for the award, but the bold idea must rely on it in some way. And we encourage you to tell us a story about the individuals you nominate. We want you to wow us because we know there are dozens of stories of federal employees trying to improve government and the lives of citizens, but they are up against big odds. Yet, they have acted bravely and with resolve to bring about change. We want to know about them, the drama they faced and the results they achieved. And, of course, the technology they used.

The winners of the Nextgov Awards will be honored at a luncheon at TechWeb's Gov 2.0 Expo in May. (Nextgov is a TechWeb partner for the event.) We'd love to see you there.

More to come.

NASA, already in the spotlight for a budget that scraps plans to return to the moon, received more negative publicity from federal auditors on Wednesday about ongoing information security problems.

Cristina Chaplain, Government Accountability Office director for acquisition and sourcing management, testified before a House panel that continuing weaknesses in information technology systems are a "key issue" facing the space agency, as it undergoes a dramatic change of direction. The White House proposed on Monday that NASA cancel the $3.5 billion Constellation program that was intended to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020. Instead, the fiscal 2011 budget calls for investing in the commercial space industry, international partners and new technologies to revitalize human space flight over the long-term.

During fiscal years 2007 and 2008, NASA reported 1,120 security incidents where malicious software was installed on its systems or intruders accessed sensitive information. Despite the establishment of a security operations center to prevent such episodes, "control vulnerabilities and program shortfalls" increase "the risk of unauthorized access to NASA's sensitive information, as well as inadvertent or deliberate disruption of its system operations," Chaplain's written testimony stated.

Such vulnerabilities make it possible for federal employees or contractors to disclose, alter or destroy sensitive data that could disrupt space missions, she added.

In response to the GAO findings, NASA officials said the department is undergoing a strategic effort to improve IT security that incorporates many of the auditors' recommendations, such as conducting physical risk assessments, comprehensive security testing, as well as deploying an adequate incident detection program.

"The [agency's] deputy administrator also stated that NASA will continue to mitigate the information security weaknesses identified" by GAO, Chaplain testified. "The actions identified by the deputy administrator, if effectively implemented, will improve the agency's information security program."

The Veterans Affairs Department has test-launched a Web site that details the performance of information technology projects summarized on the federal IT Dashboard site, which tracks the progress of IT investments governmentwide.

The "Veterans Affairs IT Product Delivery Dashboard" went live about a month ago but has not been publicized yet, said Roger Baker, the VA chief information officer, at a Monday briefing on the fiscal 2011 budget.

The VA site uses traffic light colors to grade certain aspects of 82 IT projects the department monitors monthly. For example, a red box indicates the project is more than 44 days behind schedule, while a green box means the project is either on track or less than 30 days behind.

The information on the governmentwide IT Dashboard is limited to capital asset plans, known as Exhibit 300s, that agencies submit annually to the Office of Management and Budget. The Veterans Affairs dashboard, which is currently a simple PDF table, adds monthly updates on the variance between the project's planned budget and schedule and actual progress.

Also, the department-specific site shows whether projects have been halted under VA's new project assessment method. Boxes in a column labeled "PMAS," for Project Management Accountability System, are colored red for "paused" - meaning suspended, yellow for "deferred" - or given one more chance to meet milestones or green for "cleared" - meaning approved. All the projects on the current dashboard, dated Dec. 31, are good to go but the department this summer suspended 45 other IT projects not listed on the site.

The new evaluation system temporarily stops projects that miss incremental, 6-month milestones to determine whether to spend more money rejuvenating them or permanently end them. VA has cut funding or ended at least 15 projects, as a result of this policing.

"I am more focused on PMAS than the Web site, I will admit," Baker said in an interview with Nextgov. The department plans to upgrade the site with more user-friendly navigation in the coming months.

The Labor Department has moved its entire financial system to what an agency contractor describes as a cloud-based application, the contractor, Global Computer Enterprises, announced on Thursday.

The White House is encouraging agencies to shift their inhouse hardware and software to a shared online environment, a.k.a. "the cloud," to save money and increase efficiency. President Obama has acknowledged that upfront costs may be high but the returns on investment should be higher by renting rather than owning the technology. GCE's seven-year contract with Labor, worth $50 million, marks the department's first financial management overhaul in more than 20 years, according to the company.

This may be the first cabinet-level department to launch an agencywide financial system without buying hardware or software. Officials at GCE, a small business that offers financial management services, said they deployed the application in 18 months. The pre-built system is based on Oracle Financials Release 12.

"Agencies can focus on their core mission-challenges and do not have to invest in hardware, software, and staff to run massive technology solutions," GCE Chief Strategy Officer David Lucas said in a statement. "GCE and DOL have set a high standard for other Federal entities looking to modernize their financial management system and drive good government."

Labor officials declined to comment on what financial functions are in the cloud -- or compare the cost of accessing the new setup to the cost of running its old financial system. Officials also would not say whether the consolidation would affect any federal jobs.

Private sector executives on Thursday let Obama cabinet deputy secretaries learn the secret behind their success: technology-driven operations.

The corporate chiefs of companies like Southwest Airlines met at the White House to teach the feds how to use technology to make the government more responsive to the people their agencies serve. People like veterans, retirees and students.

Afterward, federal chief performance officer Jeffrey Zients announced that the mentorships will continue. He asked the execs to take calls from the deputy secretaries next week and debrief them on the lessons they should have learned. And he said he hopes the feds will become comfortable enough with their private sector counterparts to call whenever they need advice.

Zients added that within 30 days the administration will post online an implementation plan to execute the ideas generated during Thursday's exchanges. The plan will include milestones and methods of ensuring accountability.

Acquisition Solutions Inc. purchased nearly all of the assets of ICOR Partners LLC, a government consulting firm, and has created a business unit to specialize in management solutions. Acquisition Solutions provides agencies with training sand program management services, development of contract requirements, and process improvement and other contracting support. ICOR offers enterprise architecture, governance, business transformation, performance and portfolio management advice.

Two discussions of note occurred on Thursday during the Senate Budget Committee hearing where Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and other technology executives appeared.

First, Kundra said public, up-to-date information on federal IT projects would act as a strong force to keep information technology projects on schedule and on budget. He argued that in the past (in the Bush administration) the rationale behind the Office of Management and Budget making public information on projects on the so-called watch list didn't make sense. No one knew what the problems were and, theoretically, they were allowed to fester in the darkness.

Karen Evans, Kundra's predecessor, argued in 2008 that they didn't make public the details of the troubled projects because federal managers would clam up about their problems if they knew OMB would publicize them. From a Nextgov article:

Evans, administrator of the office of e-government at OMB, said the watchdog agency chose not to release detailed information on high-risk projects because singling out agencies for problems tends to discourage them from providing accurate, in-depth data on their projects. Evans said OMB was more interested in helping agencies improve the management of the projects than chastising them.

"How much shame and embarrassment do you bring to an agency? We're supposed to be helping them," she said, adding that OMB was an agency designed to help the executive branch accomplish its mission, not operate as an auditor.

At the time, periodic Tech Insider blogger Robert Charette found the statement discouraging. He wrote, "OMB admits that government agencies will resort to what amounts to lying about the status of their troubled IT projects if the public spotlight is turned on."

Two points: 1) Will federal managers begin to hold back details in their reports if they know they will be made public? And 2) exactly how will public scrutiny put pressure on federal managers to begin to manage better?

Mark Forman, who was Evans' predecessor in the Bush administration and now with KPMG in Washington, always argued problems with IT projects could be traced back to a dearth of program and project management skills in the federal management ranks. Simple, managers just didn't have the proper training to do the job. Not sure how openness will fix that problem.

The second noteworthy topic that came up at the hearing was Kundra's argument that agencies developed projects on too grand a scale. Instead, "We need to break these contracts down into smaller chunks, move toward more fixed price contracts and hold vendors accountable to make sure they're delivering."

About 15 years ago, that was called modular-based procurement, building projects out one functional piece at a time. The idea was a big part of the procurement reform discussion in the mid 1990s. It's still being discussed. But again, the argument is that publicly available information will force agencies to approach projects in smaller chunks.

But isn't this, too, a training problem, not a transparency issue? While making the IT project information available serves a democratic purpose and shows how agencies are spending taxpayer dollars -- both important pursuits -- wouldn't the agencies and the administration be better served by hiring more skilled managers and training those who don't have the necessary program management skills?

Finally, there wasn't much talk about the lean project management corps. It's not that the Obama administration isn't aware of it. In March President Obama issued a memo ordering OMB to undertake an in-depth review of the government's contracting apparatus. How to strengthen it seems to be a pertinent subject that could have been a bigger part of the conversation during the Senate hearing. That may be as important as open government.

Writer Farhad Manjoo has an article on Slate about the government's victory over the Year 2000 computer bug, 10 years later. In brief, computers didn't crash as date fields clicked over from 99 (for 1999) to 00 (for 2000) as was widely feared because the federal government, working in concert with companies and other countries, worked to rewrite software code to show four digits for years instead of two.

Because cities weren't plunged into darkness, bank accounts didn't disappear and emergency services didn't come to a screeching halt, critics said the federal government overreacted and spent way too much money on what they saw was a phantom bug.

Reading the piece reminded me of what one of the top executives in charge of the federal government's Y2K program told me shortly after the New Year: "It just goes to show you, no good deed goes unpunished."

But in his first of a two-part series on what the Y2K experience yielded, if anything, Manjoo says a lot of good came from the intense work. Here are some of his highlights:

--"Y2K helped bring tech managers to greater prominence within their organizations, and it arguably sparked the boom in tech outsourcing."

--"It's the only recent example of something exceedingly rare in America--an occasion when we spent massive amounts of time and money to improve national infrastructure to prevent a disaster."

--"The 9/11 Commission Report says that the Y2K threat spurred a round of information sharing within the government unlike any other in recent times. The last few weeks of December 1999 were 'the one period in which the government as a whole seemed to be acting in concert,' the commission reported. It added: 'After the millennium alert, the government relaxed.'"

--"For the first time, top executives had to defer to tech people, who were called upon to take on management duties in companies -- to find all the systems vulnerable to Y2K and look for the cheapest ways to solve them."

--"This remains one of the most interesting facts about Y2K -- the whole world worked together to prevent an expensive problem. . . . Many of our thorniest problems share these features: global warming, health care policy, the federal budget, disaster preparedness."

I'd add one more to Manjoo's list: Y2K opened the minds of non-IT executives to other problems that a networked world presented that could be just as catastrophic: namely cybersecurity. Government IT executives at the time said the same effort applied to Y2K should now be applied to fixing the porous federal computer systems that sat wide open for anyone to infiltrate. It turns out they were dead on right. But, unfortunately, it didn't happen, even when electronic government was becoming the hot management topic and was given prominence in President Bush's management agenda. It took nearly another 10 years before the government began to mobilize anything resembling a Y2K-like force to take on cybersecurity. And we're still playing catch up.

But as federal tech managers said then, Y2K provided a hard, fast deadline they had to meet. They had no choice but to meet it. With security, there is no immovable deadline. And we all know what happens when you don't have a hard deadline to meet.