Federal agencies expect to save $2.5 billion over the next three years by consolidating duplicative information technology systems, buying in bulk and eliminating failing IT projects. Those savings were identified using a new approach – called PortfolioStat – where agency officials review their spending for common IT resources such as email and desktop computers in search of duplicative investments and opportunities to consolidate projects, Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients said in a blog post Wednesday. OMB officials met with agencies’ senior executives, including the chief information officer, financial officer, acquisition officer and operating officer this summer. OMB used data collected for these meetings to show agencies where their…
Browsing: Steven VanRoekel
The best government would be one where citizens would “never have to visit a government website again,” according to Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel. VanRoekel and Federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park attended an industry event Wednesday where they reiterated a strategy for connecting the public to federal data. “Part of our goal for inspiring this way of innovation is to bring government innovation and government technology to citizens where they are, where they play, where they act, anytime, anywhere on any device,” VanRoekel said. “Data that is public should be made public, to drive the social side, the civic participation…
New guidance from the White House seeks to get agencies to break “bloated, multi-year” projects for information technology acquisitions into more manageable chunks that can be delivered quickly and for less money. Lengthy acquisition and IT development efforts to deliver massive new systems over years lead to projects that wasted billions of dollars and arrived years behind schedule, Joe Jordan, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, and Steven VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer, said in a June 14 blog post. By the time some projects launched, technology was obsolete, the officials wrote. The guidance is meant to show IT, acquisition, finance and…
New technology and innovation in the federal government won’t come from increased budget growth as it has in the past, federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said Tuesday. Agencies will have to embrace what VanRoekel calls a “cut and invest” strategy by decreasing or eliminating funding for older projects and pouring that into new technology like cloud computing. “In government we don’t have a culture of take from the old and give to the new,” VanRoekel said at the Federal Office Systems Expo on Tuesday. VanRoekel said funding for new projects will come from initiatives like Shared First and data…
Starting this summer, agencies must begin using a new process to review their information technology portfolios for wasteful spending and opportunities to share services, the administration said last Friday. The new process, called PortfolioStat, is a “face-to-face,” data-based review that will help chief information, financial and acquisition officers to collectively “consolidate the acquisition and management of commodity IT, reduce duplication” and ensure that IT purchases align with their agency’s needs and mission. PortfolioStat will build on the administration’s TechStat sessions, which look at specific projects as opposed to the portfolio as a whole, according to a March 30 memo from…
A revamped version of the government’s information technology tracking website released Tuesday provides granular details about investments and allows users to view funding by bureau and services provided. The three-year-old website, called the IT Dashboard, uses data from agencies’ budget submissions, investment data and evaluations by the chief information officers to track the health of federal IT projects. “By publicly posting data on more than 700 IT investments across the Federal government, we armed agencies with the tools needed to reduce duplication in IT spending, strengthen the accountability of agency CIOs, and provide more accurate and detailed information on projects…
Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel is expected to make an announcement on Thursday detailing the administration’s long-awaited Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (Fedramp). VanRoekel will be joined by Dave McClure of the General Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security CIO Richard Spires and Charles Romine of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Office of Management and Budget said in a news release. They will provide an update about efforts to reform federal information technology and details about how Fedramp will allow the government to more easily purchase and use cloud technologies. The goal of Fedramp is to…
Agencies have a year to follow through on a White House memo requiring their chief information officers to receive greater authority. By August 2012, agencies will report through the President’s Management Council and the CIO Council on their progress in expanding the CIO’s role in four areas: • Commodity IT purchases, such as data centers, desktops, email and business systems. • Management of large IT projects and programs. • Information security programs. “As the IT Reform plan continues to be implemented we will see more results from this fundamental shift in IT policy, permanently removing the barriers that have prevented…
The White House will announce today that former Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel will replace Vivek Kundra as the federal chief information officer, according to an administration official. VanRoekel left his post as managing director of the Federal Communications Commission in June for an executive director position with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His Twitter account, @stevenvDC, has already been updated to reflect his new position as federal CIO. The New York Times reported the news early Thursday. At the FCC, VanRoekel headed the agency’s new media efforts and the redesign of FCC.gov, which operates in a cloud computing environment. Prior to…