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One of the big stories of the past week was the OPM announcement what they termed as “a major overhaul of the Federal hiring process.“

These seems to be a very important step — changing the way feds look at the process of hiring. Specifically, doing away with KSAs seems like a important step. I had one friend who was applying for a federal job who said her first relationship with the federal government was with bureaucracy through the knowledge, skills and abilities essays. They represent an odd relic that seemed to serve no real purpose.

The real question, as GovExec editor in chief Tom Shoop rightly points out, is how these reforms actually get implemented — what changes, and how they change.

Here is the rundown of the changes, according to the OPM release:

In his Memorandum, President Obama directed Federal agencies to:

• Dramatically reduce the time between when a job is announced and is filled.
• Eliminate essay-s as an initial application requirement. Essays may still be used later in the process. Under the previous system, if an individual applied for five separate Federal jobs, he or she often needed to complete five separate sets of lengthy essays.
• Use shorter, plain-language job announcements.
• Accept resumes from applicants, instead of requiring them to submit complex applications through outdated systems.
• Allow hiring managers to choose from among a group of best qualified candidates, rather than limiting their choice to just three names, through expanded use of “category ratings.”
• Notify applicants in a timely manner (and at four points in the process) through USAJobs.gov – eliminating the “black hole” that applicants often feel they when they get no response to their application.
• Submit a hiring and recruitment plan for top talent to OPM by the end of this year.
• Have all Cabinet-level and Senior Administration Officials visiting universities or colleges on official business incorporate time to discuss career opportunities in the Federal service with students.

Additionally, the President directed OPM to:

• Design a government-wide plan for recruiting and hiring qualified, diverse talent.
• Review the Federal Career Intern Program and, within 90 days, offer a recommendation to the President on its future and on providing effective pathways into the Federal service for college students and graduates.
• Work with agencies to ensure that best practices are being developed and used throughout Government.

Some other resources around the hiring reforms:

* The OPM’s new hiring reform Web site: http://www.opm.gov/hiringreform/

* Remarks by OPM Director John Berry… hear the audio from here…. or here:

* The presidential memorandum: Improving the Federal Recruitment and Hiring Process

* The guidance to agencies: Comprehensive Recruitment and Hiring Reform, Implementation of the President’s Memorandum of May 11, 2010

News coverage:

• Federal News Radio: OPM hosts CHCO hiring reforms summit today [May 12, 2010]
• Federal News Radio: Executive Order seals OPM hiring reforms [May 10, 2010]
• Federal News Radio’s Daily Debrief: Mike Causey weighs in on federal hiring reform [May 12, 2010]
• Federal News Radio: NTEU wants merit system preserved with hiring reform [May 13, 2010]
• Federal News Radio 1500 AM: How federal hiring reforms will affect managers [May 14, 2010]
• Federal Times: DHS plans hiring overhaul
• GovExec.com: Essay-based job applications are on the way out [May 12, 2010]
• GovExec’s Tom Shoop: Making Hiring Reform Real [May 11, 2010]
• Federal Times: White House orders reforms to speed hiring
• Federal Times’s FedLine blog: Who knew hiring reform could be so exciting?

One of the longest running — and somewhat tedious — debates within the government IT community: Does the CIO have a ‘seat at the table.’ I say tedious, but… most people believe it is also critically important. And therefore it garners regular discussion. For example, I moderated a panel at the 2009 Management of Change conference that looked at the changing role of the CIO… NextGov executive editor Allan Holmes when he was at CIO magazine wrote one of the seminal articles on the role of the CIO back in 1996… and just earlier this month, FCW’s John Zyskowski wrote a thoughtful feature story, The CIO 14 years later: Power vs. paperwork.

Despite being around for more than a decade now — CIO posts were created by law in government agencies in 1996 as a result of the Clinger-Cohen Act — the CIO still doesn’t seem to have been fully integrated into the leadership team at most agencies. They aren’t the strategic visionaries that are pushing for an agencies use of technology to help it accomplish its mission more effectively.

There are scores of reasons for that — more of which I’ll detail below. But I think there are some systemic reasons… and things are changing — some good, and some not great.

I’d put the largely unexplained changes going on at the Agriculture Department in the “questionable” category given that, by all accounts, the USDA CIO has been downgraded within the organization. (Frustratingly, I have been unable to get somebody from USDA to explain the details of their reorganization, so it remains the subject of conjecture rather then public discussion. So much for government openness.)

But there has been a quite, fairly significant development at NASA. NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. has changed the organization chart to give the NASA CIO direct reporting authority to the NASA administration, industry sources tell me and NASA officials have confirmed. But, almost as important, Bolden has changed the reporting authority at the NASA centers around the country report to the NASA CIO with a “dotted line” reporting authority to the individual directors at the centers.

This is a powerful step.

I haven’t been able to determine if the NASA CIO has ‘the power of the purse’ — the Holy Gail in government terms. Currently, the CIO for the Department of Veterans Affairs has spending authority by law. The Homeland Security Department CIO had that authority by policy under former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. I have not been able to confirm if the current DHS CIO still has that authority.

It is an enormous step if Federal CIO Vivek Kundra wants to actually carry out some of his proposed changes — or any real changes, for that matter. Last week, I got to hear Kundra speak at the Brookings Institution about cloud computing — and he discussed a “cloud first” strategy where agencies will look at the cloud as an option. The fact is that this instituting this kind of change requires changing the “clay layer” within agencies — agency leaders get it, and front line works just want to be able to do their jobs. It is the “clay layer” that blocks much of the government change. And most people like the control and power that comes with having their own server nearby them.

There are many ways to deal with the clay, but… one way in government is through spending, and that requires that CIOs to have the power of the purse. Of course, with that responsibility given to CIOs comes a responsibility to actually listen to people — to not become “CI-NOs,” as too often happens.

Some additional reading:

* OMB 2008 memo on the role of the CIO

A bit before Karen Evans left government, Karen Evans crafted a memo on the role of the CIO. You can read the draft memo for yourself.

* DHS CIO and the ‘power of the purse’ from back in 2007:

Here is FCW’s March 2007 story about the DHS CIO announcement. I also made it FCW’s Buzz of the Week for the week of March 19, 2007… and the following week, in FCW’s editorial, under the headline Show ‘em the money, I gave DHS credit for giving the DHS CIO spending authority over IT spending.

When there are big events, I like to pull together resources in one place — and, of course, this has been open government week — the Office of Management and Budget issued a series of policies, while agencies issued their open government plans.

Federal News Radio’s Max Cacas reports on the plans and policies:

You can find Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s ongoing coverage of the open government initiative here.

Before the plans were released, I posted DorobekINSIDER: Assessing transparency and open government.

The top level resources:

* The DorobekINSIDER reader from May 22, 2009 on the open government and transparency initiative — yes, this all is a work in progress

* The White House open government site, which has a lot of good information but buries links to agency open government plans in the open government dashboard.

* OMB director Peter Orszag blog post: OMB and Open Government, which includes a link to the four OMB open government policies — also listed below — and to OMB’s open government plan.

* White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog post by Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform:
Open for Change, which he says will “strengthen our democracy and promote accountability, efficiency and effectiveness across the government.”

* GovLoop has a great chart of all the agency open government plans

OMB policies

* Social Media, Web-Based Interactive Technologies, and the Paperwork Reduction Act [PDF] [Flash version]

* Information Collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act [PDF]

* Increasing Openness in the Rulemaking Process – Use of the Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) [PDF]

* Open Government Directive – Federal Spending Transparency [PDF]

Discussion about the policies and open government:

* Sunlight Foundation’s Ellen Miller: Idling in the driveway: “Sigh. I feel like a disappointed parent.”

* Sunlight’s Jake Brewer has told open government advocates:

Put simply, it’s increasingly clear government is not going to become more open and transparent without extraordinary public pressure. And WE are going to have to be the ones to put that pressure on them.

You can help right now by joining our campaign for open government and signing the pledge to demand all public government information be available ONLINE and in REAL-TIME.

http://PublicEqualsOnline.com

* GovLoop has a fascinating discussion, “What Do You Think about OMB Soc Media and PRA Guidance?”
Much of that discussion has revolved around the Paperwork Reduction Act — and a strong frustration that it really hinders agencies flexibilities.

A sample of some of the discussion:

This is fairly far from awesome. I’d actually label it fairly disappointing. Not only are both documents written to be as vague as possible (the PRA primer, for instance, spends most of its text simply repeating statute), this doesn’t really get us where we need to be…

More disappointing from my standpoint, it keeps in place the notion that citizen interaction with the government is essentially a “burden” and still codifies the position that significant interaction with the public should be minimized (this is clearly contrary to open government).

The discussion has spurred me to actually print out the Paperwork Reduction Act and read it for myself to get a sense of what it actually says. My sense is that some of what OMB is trying to do is work within the constraints of the law — a law enacted in the early 1980s before hardly anybody even had e-mail addresses.

* More on the Paperwork Reduction Act and its role from OnDotGov.com: A Few Things on the New Paperwork Reduction Act Guidance

* GovLoop also has a discussion on the open government plan: Open Gov plans cheers and jeers

* GovTwit’s blog: Open Government Day brings new guidance from OMB

* InformationWeek: Government Social Media Restrictions Eased
The guidance makes it easier for agencies to use social media and requires steps to ensure better rule-making and spending transparency.

* TechPresident’s Nancy Scola: Use Social Media Freely, White House Tells Agencies [April 7, 2010]

* TechPresident’s Micah Sifry: Open Govt: Does the Govt Know What the Govt Knows? [April 7, 2010]: “Let’s remember that announcing a plan isn’t the same thing as getting the job done”

* Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy: Major Milestone Reached in Open Government Initiative: “We should recognize that the 120 day mark is really just a starting point, not an endpoint.”

Meanwhile, how would you grade the Obama administration’s open government initiative so far:

Previous DorobekINSIDER readers:

* The DorobekInsider transparency, openness and data.gov reader [May 22, 2009]
* The DorobekInsider reader: Obama cyber policy review [May 29, 2009]
* The DorobekInsider Reader: National Security Personnel System recommendations [August 31, 2009]
* The DorobekInsider Reader: Veterans Day [November 11, 2009]
* The DorobekInsider reader: Howard Schmidt as cybersecurity coordinator [December 23, 2009]
* The DorobekInsider Reader: Martin Luther King Jr. [January 18, 2010]

I am moderating a panel at AFCEA’s 9th Annual Homeland Security Conference — creatively named DHS – The 7-Year Itch – Renewing the Commitment: The Definitive Dialogue on Critical Homeland Security Issues. Specifically, the panel that I’m moderating is titled President’s Comprehensive National Security Initiative. And we have a good panel to discuss these issues, even if the title of the panel doesn’t fully capture it:

Thursday, February 25
9:15 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.

Panel 6: President’s Comprehensive National Security Initiative
Industry insight into streamlining the cyber security effort through all levels of government. Thoughts and recommendations on policy, strategy and guidelines necessary to secure federal systems; integrate existing federal government resources; and anticipate future cyber threats and technologies.

Moderator: Christopher J. Dorobek (confirmed)
Co-anchor, Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris
Editor-in-chief, the DorobekINSIDER.com

Panelists:
Mr. Shawn Carroll (bio in PDF)
Executive Director of Engineering & CTO
QWEST Government Services

Mr. John Nagengast (bio in PDF)
Executive Director for Strategic Initiatives
AT&T

Mr. Marcus Sachs (bio in PDF)
Executive Director for National Security & Cyber Policy
Verizon

Credit where credit is due: I’m just the moderator. I did not pull the panel together. So I want to credit specifically Wray Varley, Qwest Government Service’s director of advanced programs, DHS & DoJ, for pulling all the pieces together.

As I mentioned, our title is just a tad bid misleading because it really doesn’t capture the scope of what we hope to talk about. (I’m not sure people know what the President’s Comprehensive National Security Initiative even is. I’ve put some background below, including a March 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service that lays it out.)

In the end, what we hope to talk about cyber-security broadly — and our discussion will really go beyond that rather governmental sounding initiative.

It is clear that times are changing in the cyber world. Cyber-security is becoming more of a check-list item to becoming a real national security priority. People are hearing about cyber-security repeatedly, but I’m not sure they know what they can — and should — be doing.

A few data points:

* The Google hack: This comes from Google’s announcement that the company was considering pulling out of China following a massive hack. Of course, we learned that these attacks were actually against a number of private sector companies and investigators are still searching for where these attacks came from. And on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, we spoke with George Kurtz, the CTO for cyber-security company McAfee, about those attacks. Hear that conversation here. McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently came out with a new report that found people are under attack more then they generally know. You can hear the authors of that report, titled In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar, here.

* The ZeuS attacks: After Google came word from NetWitness that some 2,400 organizations — including government agencies — had been attacked.

* Could the U.S. lose a cyber-war? That was the stark warning from Mike McConnell, the former director of national intelligence during testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, according to GovInfoSecurity.com. McConnell told lawmakers earlier this week that if a cyberwar were to break out today — “the United States would lose.” He went on to say that this is not because the U-S doesn’t have talented people or cutting edge technology. It is simply because the country is the most dependent and the most vulnerable — and because the country has not made the national commitment to understanding — and securing — cyberspace.

During the discussion, we are going to review this from several perspectives:
* Carrier operations — Nagengast is going to discuss what the telecommunications carriers can/should/are doing to address these important issues.
* Policy issues — Sachs is going to discuss the public and private policy issues that can/should/are helping to address this issue.
* What agencies need to do — Finally, Carroll will go review what agencies can/should/are doing to address these issues.

And my guess is that somewhere in there, we will talk about Networx, which was widely hailed as a real opportunity for agencies to upgrade their network security infrastructure. And earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission was one of the first agencies to use the Networx contract’s provisions for the Trusted Internet Connection initiative. TIC is an OMB initiative that seeks to reduce the number of government connections to the Internet to better enable agencies to secure data that passes through those connections, and OMB has been pushing agencies to move forward with TIC implementation.

Some resources — and I’ll add to these if there are links mentioned during the session:

* Congressional Research Service report: Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: Legal Authorities, Policy Considerations [March 10, 2009] Report thanks to OpenCRS — and you can download the PDF of the report from their site here.

* Center for Democracy and Technology analysis of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

* The China threat: Here is some appointment listening — and reading. Last week on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, we spoke to James Fallows of The Atlantic magazine, who wrote a fascinating piece about China generally, but also that country’s role as a cyber-attacker, which he argues is somewhat exaggerated… although he goes on to say that he doesn’t believe we are paying enough attention to cyber-security generally. Hear our conversation here. I think you’ll find the conversation — and his article — illuminating.

Government workers generally despise the term “bureaucrat” — mostly because it has all sorts of negative connotations. Generally politicians use it dripping with derision as they scoff at the work done by government workers. And so the term has come to be synonymous with red tape and government problems.

Today on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, we spoke to “the good bureaucrat” — Dwight Ink.

Giving credit where credit is due, the idea comes from William Eggers, global director of Deloitte’s public sector research program and co-author of the wonderful book If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government. (Hear Eggers here.) Eggers and his co-author John O’Leary of Harvard University, have a column in Government Executive today titled, “The Silent Leader,” in which they write about Dwight Ink.

History tends to adore the person at the helm, the president who calls the shots from the Oval Office. Overlooked are the bureaucrats who actually carry out the commands. Out of the limelight, Ink served seven consecutive presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan. Now retired, this unassuming bureaucrat was often the one doing the heavy lifting.

Read the full column here.

But Eggers got me photos of Ink through the years.

Kennedy & Test Ban

Kennedy & Nuclear Space

LBJ & Alaskan Recovery

LBJ & HUD Leadership

Nixon & Ink

Ford & Arab Embargo

Reagan & CSA Closeout

Bush & Agency Termination

The DorobekInsider told you first this week that the White House was going to announce — soon — that Daniel Gordon [PDF], the deputy general counsel for the Government Accountability Office, would be nominated to be the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The question now is… when?

GAO's Dan Gordon

The announcement could come soon — like today. But if it doesn’t come today, it might have to wait for at least a week. Why? GAO insiders confirm that Gordon is scheduled to take vacation — imagine that!?!

Government Executive’s Robert Brodsky reports that Jeffrey Zients asked Gordon to take the post several weeks ago. And Gordon has worked for GAO for years, so… it seems the announcement could come soon, but…

Unfortunately there have been cases when media reports like mine have delayed — or even quashed — nomination announcement. The White House likes to make those announcements themselves. There were reports that the Bush administration delayed the nomination announcement for Paul A.Denett because word leaked out. Frankly, I cannot imagine that level of pettiness. There are important issues to deal with here and one would hope that a PR strategy wouldn’t get in the way of the important issues, but…

While Gordon is not well known, he is well respected by people who do know him — and there are many key procurement people who do know him. Law.com picked up on some of those words of praise.

There are big challenges ahead for Mr. Gordon. Brodsky wrote about it for Government Executive magazine earlier.

Most observers agree the stature and relevance of OFPP has declined in recent years. Past administrators such as Allan Burman, Steven Kelman, David Safavian and Styles raised their profile by taking on a host of high-profile reforms, from streamlining the acquisition process to expanding the use of public-private competitions.

Under the leadership of the media-shy Paul A. Denett – who headed the office from 2006 to mid-2008 – OFPP seemed to fade into the shadows. Field, who succeeded Denett in September 2008, is considered a capable and knowledgeable executive, but her ability to influence policy and legislation is limited, contracting observers say. There are others signs of indifference to the position.

Read GovExec’s full story here.

Washington Technology’s team coverage looks at Gordon’s record to try to determine what kind of OFPP administrator he will be.

Some of Gordon’s philosophy and likely approach to procurement issues can be found in his public record. For example, in a presentation to the Acquisition Advisory Panel in 2005, Gordon said he believes that bid protests are helpful to agencies. According to the minutes of that meeting, Gordon said that, “bid protests provide a self-policing mechanism that may be more efficient than an audit because they allow the aggrieved party to raise concerns.”

Gordon has also taken on the Small Business Administration. In July of this year, he denied SBA’s request to review bid protest decisions. He wrote that GAO denied the request because SBA’s “newly raised information fails to show that our prior decision contains any errors of fact or law.” OMB Director Peter Orszag sided with SBA in that dispute.

Read the full story here.

FCW’s Matthew Weigelt also pulled together some of Gordon’s own words.

And finally… I wanted to credit Government Executive — I did it privately, but I wanted to do it publicly as well… Government Executive’s Brodsky did the somewhat unusual step of crediting the DorobekInsider and Federal News Radio with the Gordon story — and they did it even though they confirmed it on their own. Brodsky went further by crediting us in GovExec’s FedBlog as well. It certainly isn’t required — he confirmed it independently, and generally news organizations will then say that they confirmed the story and therefore they no longer have to credit. But I think it is incredibly classy — and marvelously transparent — for news organizations to credit where they got the information. I try to do that whenever possible — and my guess is this will become the way we do business. But kudos to GovExec… and thanks.

Yes — today is my birthday. (I have a friend who lies about his age. Frankly, I am trying out going the other way — Let’s be honest — I don’t look like I’m in my 30s, or if I did, it would be a hard 30 years. But I’m going the other way — while I’m 43 today, I look fantastic for a person in their 50s! Right?)

That aside… for my birthday, you’re getting the gifts.

First off, as I mentioned yesterday, through today, you can get the fourth Federal News Radio Book Club book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to reignite your team’s passion, creativity, and productivity by Michael Lee Stallard — for FREE. It is a PDF download from here.

Hear the fourth meeting of the Federal News Radio Book Club here… and download the PDF of the book from here… and did I mention that it is FREE?

Secondly, today’s Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris featured a parade of stars. Among them…

* Ed DeSeve, a senior advisor to the Vice President for recovery implementation, who talks about the challenges getting the $787 billion stimulus package… He updates us on how much has been distributed so far… It’s a fascinating conversation.
* Robert Carey, the chief information officer for the Department of Navy and the first government CIO blogger, who talks about, among other things, the fact that they are updating their government first Web 2.0 policy, his views on cyber-security, and the role of the CIO — Carey is also speaking at Input next week, if you want to ask him a question for yourself…
* And Diana Gowen, senior vice president and general manager of Quest Government Services. She has been in Chicago for the past few days for the GSA Network Services conference — and much of the focus has been the transition — or lack of transition — to the Networx telecommunications contract.

They say that journalism is the first draft of history. Well, with the transparency and openness out there these days, my guess is that most journalism is actually the second draft of history… with Tweets being the first draft. That being said, I mentioned earlier that this morning that I was 1105 Government Information Group’s Open Government and Innovation conference. And, as I do at these conferences, I post my notes in a public way (with the caveat that these are only notes).

The 1105 team had two screens featuring tweets for the event — what a great way to share thoughts in real time. And the use of the #ogi hashtag showed up on Twitter today.

There was a lot of good stuff in the morning sessions — I had to get back to Federal News Radio to do the radio show. But I wanted to post some initial thoughts as soon as possible… and hopefully there will be additional analysis to come…

* Dave Wennergren, deputy CIO at the Defense Department

Wennergren [bio in PDF] is one of the CIO rock stars — a real leader in the government IT community for his vision, intelligence, passion, and vision. And Wennergren has been one of the leaders in having the government experiment with collaborative technologies. And he gave a rousing introduction to the conference this morning. (I’ll post the audio when I have more time.)

Some bullet points from Wennergren’s speech:

* “Relentlessly sharing is what the world is going to be all about”
* Self-inflicted denial of service attack: There is a real need to balance security and collaborative technologies. Security is absolutely essential, but if security becomes too strict, it ends up becoming a “self-inflicted denial of service attack.”
* On transparency: He said that in some ways, transparency ends up being management by embarrassment. Of course, it can also be management by showing off the best and the brightest.
* Book mentioned: The book that was the first meeting of the Federal News Radio Book Club — The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey.
* Book mentioned: Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems by Barry Johnson

Still to come… bullet points on Obama CTO Aneesh Chopra’s presentation this morning… and publisher Tim O’Reilly, the creator of the term Web 2.0.

The new CIO at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Roger Baker, is wasting no time in putting troubled VA IT systems on notice. Baker announced today that it will “temporarily halt 45 information technology projects which are either behind schedule or over budget.”

I should note that Baker will be on Federal News Radio 1500 AM’s In Depth with Francis Rose this afternoon. In Depth airs from 1-3p ET.

Here is the release — and the list of systems:

Initial 45 Projects Targeted for New Department-Wide Management System

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that it will temporarily halt 45 information technology projects which are either behind schedule or over budget. These projects will be reviewed, and it will be determined whether these projects should be continued.

“Leveraging the power of Information Technology to accelerate and modernize the delivery of benefits and services to our nations Veterans is essential to transforming VA to a 21st century organization that is people-centric, results-driven and forward thinking,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said.

Secretary Shinseki ordered a review of the department’s 300 IT projects and implementation of the PMAS, designed to increase the department’s accountability for IT projects.

Each of the 45 projects will be temporarily halted. No further development will occur and expenditures will be minimized. A new project plan that meets the requirements of Program Management Accountability System (PMAS) must be created by the project manager and approved by VA’s Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology before resuming.

“VA has a responsibility to the American people, who are investing millions of dollars in technology projects, to deliver quality results that adhere to a budget and are delivered on time.” Shinseki said. “They need to have confidence that the dollars they are spending are being effectively used to improve the lives of our Veterans.”

PMAS is a management protocol that requires projects to establish milestones to deliver new functionality to its customers. Failure to meet set deadlines indicates a problem within the project. Under PMAS, a third missed customer delivery milestone is cause for the project to be halted and re-planned.

“Our goal is to increase our success rate for our systems development projects,” Roger W. Baker, VA’s Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, said. “We will use every tool at our disposal to bring about greater accountability and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. PMAS and the IT Dashboard will be critical indicators of whether our IT projects are on schedule and on budget, and if they are not, we will take swift action to cut down on waste and redundancy.”

PMAS, in conjunction with the analytical tools available through the IT Dashboard, will ensure early identification and correction of problematic IT projects. The IT Dashboard, launched last month, is a one-stop clearinghouse of information, allowing the American people to track federal information technology initiatives and hold the government accountable for progress and results.

Over the next year, all IT projects at VA will be required to move to PMAS.

The Obama Administration has made management reform a key government-wide priority. From IT accountability to personnel and contracting reforms, the administration is committed to providing better value, efficiency, and effectiveness for taxpayers’ dollars.

Below is a complete list of all projects temporarily halted under PMAS at this time:

• Scheduling Replacement
• Laboratory System Reeingeering Project (LSRP)
• Pharmacy Re-Engineering Pre .5
• Health Data Repository (HDR) II
• Pharmacy Re-Engineering Pre1.0
• HeVet Middleware Services
• Person Service Identity Management
• Administrative Data Repository (ADR)
• Document & Ancillary Imaging
• Clinical Data Service
• VA Learning Management
• Home Telehealth (HT) Development
• Occupational Health Record Keeping System (OHRS)
• Enrollment System Redesign (ESR) v4
• CHDR – Chemistry & Hematology: ADC Automation
• Clinical Flow Sheet – CLIO
• E-Gov: E-Training
• Barcode Expansion
• Delivery Service
• Organization Service
• Enrollment System Redesign (ESR) v3.1
• Health Data Repository (HDR) Data Warehouse
• Home Telehealth (HT) Infrastructure Enhancements
• Radiology Outside Reporting
• BCMA Inpatient Medication Request for SFG IRA
• Blood Bank – VBECS v1.0
• Prosthetics Enhancements
• VIC (Veterans Identification Card) Development
• Spinal Cord Injury & Disorders Outcomes v3.0
• Radiology HL7 Interface Update
• Ward Drug Dispensing Equipment (WDDE) Interface
• Lab Data Sharing & Interoperability (LDSI) – Anatomic Pathology/Microbiology
• HBPC Medical Foster Home (MFH)
• eClaims Plus
• ASISTS Modification – Case Management
• National Teleradiology Program
• CAPRI Enhancements
• Master Patient Index
• RMS – Rights Management Server
• National Teleradiology Program
• Problem List Standardization
• Radiology Standardization
• LDSI Terminology Support
• Clinical/Health Data Repositories (CHDR) Phase II
• Fee Data and HERO

Meanwhile, federal CIO Vivek Kundra is using the Federal IT Dashboard blog to say this is exactly what is supposed to happen…

Evidence-based decisions

Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), under the leadership of Secretary Shinseki and VA CIO Roger Baker, announced that it will temporarily halt 45 IT projects which are either behind schedule or over budget and work to determine whether these programs should be continued. We’re not talking about a trivial sum here—the Fiscal Year 2009 combined budget for the 45 projects is approximately $200 million. The worst offender of the bunch was 110% over budget and 17 months behind schedule.

We were able to catch these contracts, in part, thanks to our new tool, the “IT Dashboard” which helped shed light on the performance of projects across the federal government.

During the next few weeks, the VA will audit these 45 projects to determine whether additional resources or new management teams can get them back on schedule. If they can’t be fixed, the projects will be canceled.

If you are just hearing about the IT Dashboard for the first time, it allows you to see which IT projects are working and on-schedule (and which are not), offer alternative approaches, and provide direct feedback to the chief information officers at federal agencies.

Given the size and complexity of the federal IT portfolio, the challenges we face are substantial and persistent. The dashboard is not a substitute for good management. Its value comes from leaders who use the information to make tough, evidence-based decisions on the future of IT investments.

The VA’s announcement is part of a broader effort by the Administration to make the federal government more transparent and to boost accountability and drive better performance. From IT accountability to personnel and contracting reforms, the administration is committed to providing better value, efficiency, and effectiveness for taxpayers’ dollars.

We’ve been following the controversy around the $9.5 million contract to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site that was awarded to Smartronix. (The chairman of the Recovery Board spoke to Federal News Radio 1500 AM on Monday.)

The company has issued a press release [Scrib in Flash; PDF], but, more importantly, the company also issued a statement about some of the concerns about the contract. [PDF]

It is posted below, but… the highlights:

The task…

The Smartronix Recovery.gov 2.0 Team is required to design, procure, install, configure, secure, operate and maintain an entire Web infrastructure (development, test, staging, and production components) to support tens of millions of users. The Team also must provide a businessintelligence platform for reporting and advanced data visualizations for hundreds of thousands of reporting entities. The solution must be robust, fault tolerant, secure, and highly available. A mirrored continuity of operations environment is also required.

And they pointed to the statement of work…

The procurement process and award…

The Recovery.gov 2.0 task was procured in a competitive environment under the newly awarded GSA Alliant contract, which was also competitively awarded. There are 59 awardees under the Alliant contract, including many of the largest and most respected information technology companies in the United States. Smartronix provided a proposal that the government selected as “Best Value” to perform the task’s contractual requirements.

And an excerpt about Smartronix history and an overview of the company…

Smartronix is a classic example of the small business American dream. Founded in 1995 on credit cards, life savings, and second mortgages in a one-room basement office in Lexington Park, Maryland, the company founders had a vision for a company that would demonstrate a strong commitment to customer service and a desire to create a family-oriented culture. Our deep tradition of client and employee commitment and a never-ending desire for continuous improvement has resulted in what was envisioned years ago – a family-like bond with employees and long-lastingpartnerships with clients.

And the Smartronics Recovery.gov team

• KPMG LLP
• Synteractive. Synteractive
• TMP Government

Here is the full statement: