FITARA | The Contracting Education Academy

November 3, 2015 By AMK

OFPP: Inaugural IT acquisition cadre starts work

An information technology-focused cadre of acquisition professionals will begin work, said Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Administrator Anne Rung.

The creation of the group was mandated by the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA.

“We are delighted that this week we kicked off our first class of digital IT acquisition specialists,” said Rung during an Oct. 26 panel discussion at the ACT-IAC Executive Leadership Conference.

“It’s career acquisition employees who partner with industry to go through this six-month experiential, hands-on training, and the idea is to put them back in the agencies to touch the IT acquisitions,” she said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/rung-inaugural-it-acquisition-cadre-starts-work-week/2015-10-26

May 15, 2015 By AMK

Does FITARA guidance go far enough in optimizing software licenses?

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently held a hearing titled Government Accountability Office’s “Duplication Report at Five Years: Recommendations Remain Unaddressed.”

At the hearing, Beth Cobert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, testified. She was questioned by committee member, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, from Illinois’ 8^th District, who honed in very quickly on the subject of software license optimization:

“I noted that better management of software licenses is an area where savings can be achieved. Can you please help me understand in OMB’s view how agencies can better manage their software licenses? Specifically, I’d like to hear how OMB believes agencies should inventory that software to see how much of it is actually deployed to end users, and how much of what’s deployed is actually being put to use.”

Ms. Cobert’s response illustrates the depths of the federal government’s lack of progress in controlling waste due to poor software license management practices. In her testimony, Ms. Colbert noted that the government is developing a system for managing and inventorying its software licenses, which are procured on a highly decentralized basis.

She noted that the recently passed Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act legislation will give the federal CIO more authority in getting agencies to better coordinate and consolidate their buying.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/tech-insider/2015/05/why-fitara-guidance-needs-address-software-license-optimization/111814/

September 24, 2014 By AMK

Contracting officers: Take a look, it’s in a book

A bill to reform how the government buys and manages technology came up this week at a hearing about the security of HealthCare.gov — but contracting officers willing to plunge into some heavy reading may discover they already have a lot of the capability they need.

While Republicans grilled Obamacare officials about a recent hack — and other vulnerabilities — of their signature website, one Democrat used the occasion to plug what may be his favorite piece of pending legislation: The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA.

“Isn’t information security related to how well we’re managing our IT assets?” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., asked officials. He gave a brief description of what FITARA would do for IT managers; the bill actually has plenty of support and seems only to await action.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/emerging-tech-blog/2014/09/you-already-have-power-procure-it-look-within/94607/

The GSA Digital Service’s TechFAR Handbook can be found at: https://github.com/WhiteHouse/playbook/blob/gh-pages/_includes/techfar-online.md

July 2, 2014 By AMK

Will FITARA help agencies embrace the cloud?

Even as the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act makes its way to the Senate floor, experts are split on whether the bill goes far enough and if legislation is needed at all to fix government’s IT acquisition problems.

Angela Styles, chair of Crowell & Moring’s government contracts group, said a bulky procurement process for industry often drives the private sector away from even giving the government options in what it purchases.

“These companies that come to us and ask ‘What does it mean to be a federal contractor?’ come with the expectation based on FASA (the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act) and FARA (the Federal Acquisition Reform Act) from the ’90s that the government has an idea how to contract in a commercial fashion. Maybe the changes in ’94 and ’95 were more commercial, but they are not now,” Styles said, speaking Tuesday during a panel session at Amazon Web Services’ annual symposium for federal IT reform.

Styles said the provisions set up in part 12 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) contribute to an “extraordinary gulf” between how the government and private sector do business.

Keep reading this article at: http://fedscoop.com/fitara-cloud/

June 12, 2014 By AMK

Is the third time a charm for federal IT acquisition reform?

While many support the current form of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act that passed the House May 22 for the third time in nearly 15 months, some of the bill’s earliest advocates said the changes aren’t quite the reform they initially hoped for.

Brocade Communications Systems, a tech company focusing on products for data storage and networking, was part of the initial House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on January 22, 2013, about federal IT acquisition – the foundations of what would later become FITARA. At that hearing, the company’s former CEO, Michael Klayko, testified about the costs of over-dependence on a single-source supplier in the federal acquisition process.

Now, the company’s director of federal sales, Tony Celeste, said the latest version of the bill is good, but that government IT reform isn’t quite finished yet.

“We’re excited about the bill in its current draft,” Celeste said. “We were a little disappointed to see the IT centers of excellence be pulled from the bill. The rationale behind that was we thought that having the IT acquisition centers in there would give agencies the ability to see new technology, to try new technology, that they’re now not going to have the opportunity to do.”

Keep reading this article at: http://fedscoop.com/is-the-third-time-a-charm-for-fitara/

– See more at: http://fedscoop.com/is-the-third-time-a-charm-for-fitara/#sthash.XzvtBW5k.dpuf

An information technology-focused cadre of acquisition professionals will begin work, said Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Administrator Anne Rung.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently held a hearing titled Government Accountability Office’s “Duplication Report at Five Years: Recommendations Remain Unaddressed.”

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