Outcomes Over Infrastructure: Ensuring Successful Mission with as-a-Service (S1E33)

Anybody can read a technical report and dazzle people with glorious amounts of tech speak. What does it all mean to a federal leader who is trying to apply technology to accomplish a mission?

This is a balanced interview with two federal leaders and two commercial subject matter experts who give examples of how a focus on the mission allows the federal government to spend money effectively while reaching its goals.

Dr. Greg Edwards, FEMA, summed up the discussion in a short phrase, “start with the end in mind.”  FEMA has extremely complex missions.  If you drill down on one technical aspect, you can end up knowing one area in detail and miss the agency goal.

The “how” is always a challenge.  Rob Davies from Vion Corporation observes that innovation may swamp federal decision-makers. The method to filter the deluge is through outreach, communication, and governance.

John Moses from the NRC gives an outstanding model of the “outreach” part. The NRC conducted an “IT Roadmap” that began with interviewing stakeholders in many departments. This included focus groups, senior management, and a wide range of staff.  From there, they distilled the requirements into a plan that they shared with participants and mission partners.

Not only was this transparent, but it gave everyone an ability to understand where the agency was headed and how they would accomplish that.

Innovations can assist agencies accomplish their mission.  For example, rather than looking at a black and white issue like cloud/no cloud, John Moses introduced the concept of colocation.

He defines it as, essentially, a federal data center that is located next to other cloud data centers.  Cameron Chehreh expands on the effectiveness of this new model.  It allows federal agencies to leverage the cloud ecosystem to reduce costs and improve cyber posture.  Cameron calls this “cloud adjacency” and he thinks this flexible arrangement may be the model for the future.

COVID has hit federal agencies as well as commercial entities.  John Moses from the NRC talks about how the pandemic has forced his staff to scale the infrastructure.  He continues to expand on how their business policies were improved and the concept of the centrality of data was reinforced by the pandemic’s forced nature of remote work.

The interview also contains many kinds of observations about the Executive Order on Cybersecurity as well as comments on identity management and newly evolving security standards.

To view this webinar: Outcomes over Infrastructure: Ensuring Successful Mission with as-a-Service.

Featured Speakers: