Risk management Archives

White House officials on Wednesday circulated a memo, obtained by Nextgov, that encourages procurement officers to communicate with contractors before finalizing solicitations, in an effort to dispel misperceptions about conflicts of interest.

The idea is that companies know the costs and features of current technology better than the government so potential bidders should be consulted early in the process of drawing up system requirements for contracts.

"Although industry may have had their best technical representatives engaged with the program manager, the contracting officer should communicate to vendors as much information as possible about the government's needs as early as possible," states a copy of the guidance, signed by Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Daniel Gordon. "As a result of early communication, the contracting officer may learn some things that suggest that an approach somewhat different than planned may cause increased competition, more small business participation, lower prices, or even a better definition of the government's technical requirements."

Fears of contract protests or signing unauthorized deals have prevented some acquisition officers from talking to vendors, according to the memo. At the same time, industry may stay away -- out of concern that stepping over boundaries may bar them from future government business.

The document requires agencies by June 30 to develop plans for communicating with contractors. After the plans are reviewed by the White House, they must be made publicly available within a month.

Wednesday's memo takes pains to stress that nothing within the guidelines should be interpreted to "alter, or authorize violations of, applicable ethics rules, procurement integrity requirements, or other statutes or regulations that govern communication and information sharing."

After discussions with company representatives and agency staff, the White House identified the 10 most frequently-mentioned misconceptions about contractor-government fraternization:

1. "We can't meet one-on-one with a potential offeror." Fact: Government officials can generally meet one-on-one with potential offerors as long as no vendor receives preferential treatment.
2. "Since communication with contractors is like communication with registered lobbyists, and since contact with lobbyists must be disclosed, additional communication with contractors will involve a substantial additional disclosure burden, so we should avoid these meetings." Fact: Disclosure is required only in certain circumstances, such as for meetings with registered lobbyists. Many contractors do not fall into this category, and even when disclosure is required, it is normally a minimal burden that should not prevent a useful meeting from taking place.
3. "A protest is something to be avoided at all costs -- even if it means the government limits conversations with industry." Fact: Restricting communication won't prevent a protest, and limiting communication might actually increase the chance of a protest, in addition to depriving the government of potentially useful information.
4. "Conducting discussions or negotiations after receipt of proposals will add too much time to the schedule." Fact: Whether discussions should be conducted is a key decision for contracting officers to make. Avoiding discussions solely because of schedule concerns may be counter-productive, and may cause delays and other problems during contract performance.
5. "If the government meets with vendors, that may cause them to submit an unsolicited proposal and that will delay the procurement process." Fact: Submission of an unsolicited proposal should not affect the schedule. Generally, the unsolicited proposal process is separate from the process for a known agency requirement that can be acquired using competitive methods.
6. "When the government awards a task or delivery order using the Federal Supply Schedules, debriefing the offerors isn't required so it shouldn't be done." Fact: Providing feedback is important, both for offerors and the government, so agencies should generally provide feedback whenever possible.
7. "Industry days and similar events attended by multiple vendors are of low value to industry and the government because industry won't provide useful information in front of competitors, and the government doesn't release new information." Fact: Well-organized industry days, as well as pre-solicitation and pre-proposal conferences, are valuable opportunities for the government and for potential vendors -- both prime contractors and subcontractors, many of whom are small businesses.
8. "The program manager already talked to industry to develop the technical requirements, so the contracting officer doesn't need to do anything else before issuing the RFP." Fact: The technical requirements are only part of the acquisition; getting feedback on terms and conditions, pricing structure, performance metrics, evaluation criteria, and contract administration matters will improve the award and implementation process.
9. "Giving industry only a few days to respond to an RFP is OK since the government has been talking to industry about this procurement for over a year." Fact: Providing only short response times may result in the government receiving fewer proposals and the ones received may not be as well-developed -- which can lead to a flawed contract. This approach signals that the government isn't really interested in competition.
10. "Getting broad participation by many different vendors is too difficult; we're better off dealing with the established companies we know." Fact: The government loses when we limit ourselves to the companies we already work with. Instead, we need to look for opportunities to increase competition and ensure that all vendors, including small businesses, get fair consideration.

GSA predicts its move to a cloud-based e-mail system for all employees will be a good thing in the long run, but the agency's chief information officer acknowledged some immediate challenges on Thursday.

Information security is the paramount concern with the switch to the system that will use the Google Apps for Government platform, said CIO Casey Coleman during a Thursday afternoon call with reporters.

Anytime a switch in a critical business platform occurs, other problems are bound to crop up as well, she said. Those include management challenges such as making sure everybody understands the process and the plan, as well as training issues.

Another problem that could pop up is ensuring that all information contained in the current platform is migrated successfully to the cloud, Coleman said.

Nevertheless, "I believe everyone is excited and looking forward to [the] change," Coleman added.

It was also critical that GSA make the switch now, according to Coleman. Current e-mail systems run on some servers that are as old as six years, and GSA has come close to an outage, Coleman said, adding there was an "urgency on [the] sense of timing." The agency plans to fully transition in fiscal year 2011.

The White House this morning announced much-anticipated contracting reforms that propose changing the budget cycle for information technology projects and developing a path to promotion for IT program managers.

The details of the plan -- announced by Office of Management and Budget Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients -- are explained in a Nextgov column by Pratap Chatterjee, who is a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank with close ties to the Obama administration.

We'll have more information and perspective on Nextgov later today.

NASA has taken some hits for having decades-old computer technology running the shuttle program and the International Space station. For example, the space agency uses some technology that the moon programs relied on in the 1960s and the space station uses processors more than two decades old. Sounds like a typical government operation? Well, no, when you have scientists explain it.

A silicon.com article reports:

When it comes to spacecraft, design reliability - and not bleeding edge technology - is the watchword, with onboard chips having to undergo extensive testing to prove their robustness and compatibility with the spacecraft's onboard software.

. . . "A spacecraft is not accessible - once it is launched it is there, so you have to be extremely sure that things work," said [Alessandro] Donati, [head of the advanced mission concepts and technologies office at the European Space Agency's Space Operations Centre at Darmstadt, Germany].

Upgrading computing hardware is another task that is normally straightforward on the ground but that becomes an expensive and time-consuming job in space.

Simply put, any upgrade or new technology has to work from the beginning -- always, or else. That's why it takes nearly three years to do a software upgrade. Everything has to be tested and tested again.

But NASA plans to upgrade processors on the space station next year - "the station's first major avionics computer redesign in the 12 years it has been in orbit," silicon.com reports.

Ari Schwartz, a longtime advocate for protecting privacy in the age of Web-based government, is leaving his post at the Center for Democracy and Technology to press for change from within the administration at the National Institute for Standards and Technology.

After working at the Washington civil liberties group for nearly 13 years, Schwartz on Monday announced that he has accepted an offer to become a NIST senior adviser for Internet policy. The move will allow him to continue examining issues related to identity management, cybersecurity and privacy, he said.

Recently, Schwartz helped CDT negotiate with the Office of Management and Budget to lift a decade-old rule banning federal websites from using Web-tracking tools and add constraints that would protect users' personal identities.

Schwartz will join the federal government on Aug. 30.

"I've always said that my position at CDT was my dream job. In fact, it exceeded any expectation I could have ever had. Mostly that is due to the great colleagues and mentors that I've had here. On the other hand, I have great admiration and respect for those in public service," he said in an e-mail. "I have been on the lookout for the right position in the federal government and I'm confident that this is it."

Developing financial management systems that work has been a big, persistent pain for agencies for years and years. But now the Office of Management and Budget wants to see if they can provide a solution. The office is getting ready to issue new rules to try to rein in the runaway systems, according to an article by Jason Miller at Federal News Radio.

The upshot of the memo: develop financial systems more incrementally to control costs and improve performance. According to a draft memo written by OMB director Peter Orszag, the White House "would halt all new financial management system modernization projects worth at least $10 million, and all existing task orders for ongoing development efforts worth more than $500,000," according to FNR. Agencies would have to have their financial management modernization plans approved by OMB.

Incremental development projects would be no longer than 90 days and the entire project couldn't last more than two years. OMB also would back off a mandate to use shared services, telling agencies to use them only when it makes sense.

The memo seems to pull from the U.S. Government 2009 Financial Report, which was released on Feb. 26. The report "said agencies must reconsider expensive, long-term investments in favor of shorter-term, more efficient information technology solutions . . . ," according to a March 5 Nextgov article. However, OMB didn't follow the report's recommendation to rely more on shared services.

OMB's approach has some risks, however, FedSources' Ray Bjorklund told Nextgov at the time:

I question whether there are going to be adequate solutions out there that meet OMB's objectives for quick implementation, without running at cross purposes with Congress and the [Government Accountability Office]. Requiring agencies to use short-term solutions that may fail to meet essential [financial management] requirements is a challenging path to take. Participating agencies must be prepared for any ensuing criticism by the auditors.

An Australian data management company has hired 200 inmates in a jail there to process data. iTNews reported that the prisoners "will handle banking information 24 hours a day using a shift system." They'll be paid (U.S.) $2.20 a day.

The program was started to teach prisoners a skill that they could then use to find a job once they served their sentences. The prison, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, was chosen because a large portion of the inmate population has a higher than average education level.

iTNews did not report what data beyond the "banking information" the inmates would be processing, but I bet most managers here would like to see the risk management plan for this project.

Managing risk is the job of government, and arguably the central mission of any agency, as Robert Charette wrote in a Government Executive March 2009 feature.

But it's tough. Just consider what European governments had to go through in deciding when it was safe to allow airlines to take to the fly , as discussed in a blog item that risk-expert Robert Charette. Managing risk starts with having the right data to put in computer models. Citing a Financial Times article, he wrote:

The FT says that the models used were "based on incomplete science and limited data, according to European officials. As a result, they may have over-stated the risks to the public, needlessly grounding flights and damaging businesses."

The FT story also says that the models lacked basic information, such as "what concentration of ash was hazardous for jet engines, or at what rate ash fell from the sky."

That conclusion reinforces Charette's thesis in his GE article:

Americans want life to be less risky. But the problem is government isn't being managed to reduce risks. . . . Agencies don't mention the word risk, and if they do it's in a mish-mash of incoherent policies and misplaced budgets.

Maybe agencies can learn some lessons from what inevitably will be a European review of how the risk of flying while the ash hung in the air was determined.

Engineers, scientists and at least one lawmaker are pushing like never before to resuscitate a legislative agency that once provided Congress with technological expertise.

In an era of supposed government transparency, with allegations that even scientists are attempting to cover up research on global warming, an objective, authoritative Office of Technology Assessment is of utmost importance, advocates say.

Several lawmakers, particularly House member and physicist Rush Holt, D-N.J., have repeatedly rallied for appropriations to revive the office that Congress dismantled to save money in 1995. The counterargument against funding has always been that other agencies, such as the Government Accountability Office or Congressional Research Services, could provide the same services.

Now that belief may be changing, says Francesca Grifo, scientific integrity program director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who will testify on Wednesday before the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. Holt also will testify in support of restored funding.

"We've decided to make it a priority issue," Grifo said in an interview with Nextgov on Tuesday. Her group is releasing a letter of encouragement signed by 30 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Auto Workers. "It seems a little counterintuitive but, if you look at our current fiscal situation, OTA saves money," she said, explaining that if lawmakers have sound technical advice when they make policy decisions, "you'll waste less money."

Established in the early 1970s, the office was responsible for providing Congress with early evaluations of the potential costs and benefits of new technologies and new applications of existing technologies.

Grifo's organization estimates that the office cost Congress about $20 million annually but, since its extinction, the federal government has squandered billions of dollars on failed systems, including virtual fences to guard the U.S-Mexico border and baggage screening equipment.

A sample of reports produced shortly before its demise shows that the office already was on top of many innovations at the forefront of today's legislative agenda.

One 1995 report referenced the potential for tracking the efficacy of medical treatments with electronic health data - a controversial issue in the ongoing debate over healthcare reform. "Because large amounts of electronic data now can be collected and manipulated, there has been increased emphasis on using existing data, often in the form of insurance claims databases, to evaluate health care technologies," the research stated. "Data gathered from events occurring in a wide range of practice settings have become viewed as a tool for looking at effectiveness-- average outcomes achieved by average doctors and patients."

In a report entitled "Bringing Health Care Online: The Role of Information Technologies," the office found that electronic patient records, portable computers, automated data capture and computer networks "can potentially improve the quality of health care" by "enhancing clinical decision support and by improving data for assessing the effectiveness of health services and the performance of health care providers and insurance plans."

Another 1995 report probed the ramifications of electronic surveillance, concluding, "If major problems arise in meeting the needs of law enforcement, they will likely arise as a result of institutional difficulties in dealing with a diverse, highly entrepreneurial industry made up of a large number of telecommunications companies offering many new innovations and features, with the number of players steadily increasing."

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.