FedInsider.com will bring you fortnightly the voices
of those in the government community driving change. You'll hear about leaders
from both government and industry who will lead and manage government through
transition to the next Administration. Watch your inbox on the 1st and 15th every
month.
—7/1/08

- June 17, 2008
- June 3, 2008
- May 21, 2008
- April 30, 2008
- April 2, 2008
- March 19, 2008
- February 27, 2008
- February 6, 2008
- January 23, 2008
- January 8, 2008
- December 15, 2007
TOM TEMIN - A trusted member of the Federal community, Tom has had a seat at
the table from which to inform us on the issues of the day for more than 16 years.
As the editor of FedInsider.com, Tom will continue to bring you viewpoints on
the issues of the day. Read Tom's Bio. |
FedInsider.com is published by
Hosky Communications Inc.
3811 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20016
202-237-0300
Publisher: Tom Hosky
Editor: Tom Temin,
Thomas R Temin Associates
Design: Denise Hyatt-Roberts, Cyber
Services, Inc.
Marketing: Kathryn Nanai,
Hosky Communications Inc.
|
|
AT AGRICULTURE,
CIOs AND CFOs ARE PUTTING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER
In the military, they are called two-hatters: officers with two jobs.
But you’ll also find civilian agency two hatters. Chuck Christopherson
at the Agriculture Department is one such hybrid. -> Read
More HAS THE POST-DISCRIMINATION AGE
DAWNED?
Set-asides and contracting preference for various classes of businesses
seem like parts of a routine way of life. Yet in a way, they remain
controversial. -> Read More
THE QUESTION ON EVERYONE'S LIPS: WHAT DOES
IT MEAN FOR ME?
While the press was confidently crowning frontrunners in
the presidential nomination sweepstakes earlier this month, the voters
in New Hampshire made the so-called pundits look stupid. -> Read
More
INFO TECH IS NOT ABOUT THE GADGETS
Reading about and following CES confirmed my suspicion that IT progress
is less about gadgets, even new technology, than it was years ago, and
more about smart and secure ways of deploying technology already available.
-> Read More
-
In the military, they are called two-hatters: officers with two
jobs. But you’ll also find civilian agency two hatters.
 |

Chuck Christopherson, CIO/CFO Agriculture
Department.
|
Chuck Christopherson at the Agriculture Department is one such
hybrid. He’s the chief information officer and the chief financial
officer. With those two hats, you might think Christopherson simply
has meetings with himself to decide IT spending priorities.
But it’s not quite that simple.
Having a single CIO/CFO “strengthens the priorities on both
sides,” Christopherson says. “Often, in the financial
side, if there’s a vacuum, support of IT becomes weak.”
If there’s a vacuum on the IT side, the tech folks may find
they are not getting the funding they need “and not understand
why.”
Christopherson is helping plan the upcoming IRMCO conference and
is planning on attending again this year. He’ll be available
to talk about his two-fer role, saying the CIO-CFO have a “strong
connection people need to understand.”
As a dual hatter, Christopherson tends to delegate day-to-day activities
to the deputies, but is not above reaching down into the ranks to
operate at a more detailed level when necessary.
In effect running IT and finances for what he describes as the
world’s eighth largest bank, Christopherson says he finds
advantages in having the two functions work closely together. Being
in the loans, grants and insurance business, the CIO/CFO combine
has focused on IT-enabled process quality improvement according
to the so-called Six Sigma philosophy.
Five major projects concern establishing departmentwide standard
processes for invoicing, grants, loans, insurance issuance and geospatial
information systems. “So USDA will have one process for the
whole department, with minor variations,” Christopherson says.
He expects the effort to start saving the department $20 million
per year, all resulting from finance and IT teams working together.
Within the department, various bureaus are leading the individual
process improvement efforts. For example, the Cooperative State
Research Education and Extension Service, or CREES, is in charge
of the grants packages work.
These process improvements won’t be merely for the benefit
of the government.
“Eventually we want [the processes] to be intuitive for citizens
to use,” says Christopherson. Whether people visiting a USDA
web site are grant seekers or vendors, for example, they should
know whether their submissions meet federal requirements, whether
the government has received and acknowledged the application and
that it is complete, and what the estimated payment or grant date
is.
Christopherson is pushing change throughout USDA process owners.
He is also sending large groups for training in project and change
management at the department’s school in Greenbelt, Md. By
the end of this year, he hopes 130 people will have been trained
in the art and science of overhauling business processes.
In one case, a group of people ranging from clerks to program managers
dissected a human resources system operated by USDA’s National
Finance Center. It found some quick fixes that eliminated a constant
source of confusion—and errors—in a crucial screen.
In another, a cumbersome and slow approval system for under-$25,000
purchases was automated. The team eliminated steps using guidance
from an Office of Management and Budget detailee. Purchase approval
time want from 30 days to seven days, Christopherson says.
Return to top
-
Set-asides and contracting preference for various classes of businesses
seem like parts of a routine way of life. Yet in a way, they remain
controversial.
For the federal government, 23 percent is the number—that’s
the portion of contracting dollars that are in theory supposed to
be set aside every year for small, disadvantaged businesses—those
that might be owned, for example, by disabled veterans, women or
Alaska natives. Most agencies have offices devoted to ensuring compliance
with such contracting rules, and the government measures its performance
in this regard every year.
But the government also has provisions for small businesses to
graduate from preference programs. STG Inc. is a case in point.
It recently became just a regular contractor after completing its
last contract as an 8(a) small business. RS Information Systems,
recently acquired by a west-coast engineering services company,
is another high-profile 8(a), minority-owned graduate.
But can a whole class of companies graduate? The Small Business
Administration appears to think so. It has proposed a rule to change
how the government considers women-owned business.
In the SBA’s
words: “Under this proposed rule, a contracting officer
in any federal agency could set aside contracts or work, but only
within an industry in which WOSBs have been identified as under-represented
or substantially under-represented. Only small businesses owned
or controlled by economically disadvantaged women would then be
eligible for these contracts.”
Naturally, the question is, what industries, specifically? Under
the proposal, national security and international affairs; metalworking
(coating, engraving, heat treating, and allied activities); furniture
making and automobile dealers.
Groups representing women businesses have, not surprisingly, weighed
in against this proposed rule, which is now in the public comment
phase until Feb. 25. Could it be that women-owned businesses have
come so far that they can operate past the assumption of discrimination
requiring special treatment? That is, isn’t it a good thing
that most women-owned businesses don’t need preferential treatment?
Send me your views, tom.temin@gmail.com
and I’ll put them in a future newsletter. Whatever your view,
be sure to add your comment on the rule by visiting regulations.gov.
Return to top
-
Hillary? Barack? John? Mitt? Ron?
While the press was confidently crowning frontrunners in the presidential
nomination sweepstakes earlier this month, the voters in New Hampshire
made the so-called pundits look stupid. And now there is uncertainty
as to who will be the parties’ nominees.
Federal managers have a little more at stake than the average American,
because they’re going to be working for the guy—or gal—who
ultimately becomes president. Each administration sweeps in with,
uh oh, some agenda for how it wants to run the nuts and bolts of
government.
At this point in the race, it is too early to tell what the next
president’s management agenda will be. Let’s face it:
The election is going to be decided on more cosmic issues. The candidates,
however, are starting to populate their platforms with bits and
pieces of what they will do, and there is a web site that is tracking
this.
Thenextgovernment.com
is a web site operated by the University of Pennsylvania’s
Fels Institute of Government. You can find out things such as the
fact that John Edwards, Democratic candidate (as of this writing),
would push for tighter controls over contractors operating in war
theatres. Mitt Romney would take away the pension of any fed found
to “violate the public trust.” Whoa, tough.
You’ll find a matrix of the candidates’ positions on
HR/personnel, performance and accountability, IT, organizational
structure and budgeting. At this point, there are a lot of blanks
still in the matrix. Maybe after Super Tuesday the Fels folks will
have more to fill in.
Return to top
-
Missed the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas? Me too.
A fair contingent of government people does attend these large shows.
In recent years, with the disappearance of Comdex, the CES has also
become a venue for IT products. Any anyhow, IT and entertainment
have been converging for some time.
Reading about and following CES confirmed my suspicion that IT
progress is less about gadgets, even new technology, than it was
years ago, and more about smart and secure ways of deploying technology
already available.
Most of what was displayed at CES fell into one of two categories.
One is further development of the existing. For example, a 150-inch
plasma display
that received so much publicity wasn’t new tech, but simply
a more robust application of something that’s been around
for years. Category two would be the clever integration of existing
technologies. One example was Microsoft’s touch-screen
table. Touch technology was touted at CES as if something new
had dawned, but in reality it has been around for 15 years. Applications
of it have gotten exponentially better, for sure.
Government as a whole faces problems not of IT technology but of
deployment. That is, keeping application development contracts on
schedule, getting the most out of existing infrastructure investments
and cutting costs through consolidation.
Return to top
|
advertisements
IRMCO 2008 Presentations
GSA's Executive Management Conference
IRMCO 2008 Keynotes:
Paul Cosgrave
CIO and Commissioner, Department of Information
Technology and Telecommunications,
City of New York
Todd Davis
CEO, LifeLock
The Honorable
Norman Y. Mineta
former Congressman, Secretary of the Department
of Commerce, Secretary of the
Department of Transportation
Governor Martin O'Malley
State of Maryland (invited)
Robert Shea
Associate Director for Administration and
Government Performance, OMB
Mary Crane
Bridging the Generation Gap
Karen Evans
Administrator, Information Technology and
E-Government, United States
Ken Cochrane
Chief Information Officer, Canada
Laurence Millar
Deputy Commissioner, Information and Communications
Technologies, New Zealand
Ann Steward
Chief Information Officer, Australia
John Suffolk
Chief Information Officer,
United Kingdom
|