HHS | The Contracting Education Academy

June 20, 2019 By AMK

Government innovation? Weirdness comes in threes

How often have you heard that the government is stodgy and resistant to change? Large bureaucracies, both in business and government, do trend that way. But three curious initiatives from federal agencies occurred in the days leading to the long Memorial Day weekend.

Unrelated, they nevertheless connect thematically by showing an instinct towards government innovation, that is, a government willing to try something different.

First was the appointment of Jose Arrietta as the chief information officer of the Department of Health and Human Services. I’ve interviewed Arrietta a couple of times. He’s a smart cookie. He’s possesses good technology chops, having been one of the people trying to prove how blockchain can work in federal settings. In his relatively short time at HHS, Arrietta saw to it that the first blockchain application received authority to operate. That in itself is radical.

But as Jason Miller reported, Arrietta is an unconventional choice to lead an IT complex as vast and diverse as that of HHS. It’s government innovation in personnel. He’s mainly an acquisition guy, and acquisition is an important part of technology and information management. The blockchain application is in fact acquisition. Now Arrietta will have to show he can widen his viewpoint and make things happen in all areas overseen by a CIO.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2019/05/government-innovation-weirdness-comes-in-threes/

June 18, 2019 By AMK

RPA takes hold in agency procurement

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Cybersecurity experts have a new tool in the fight against hackers – a decoy robot. Researchers at Georgia Tech built the “HoneyBot” to lure hackers into thinking they had taken control of a robot, but instead the robot gathers valuable information about the bad actors, helping businesses better protect themselves from future attacks.

Speaking at the Shared Services Leadership Coalition RPA conference, Newhart said OFPP is monitoring how agencies are using RPA, especially when it comes to procurement. The Department of Health and Human Services is piloting RPA for the closeout phase of acquisitions, and the General Services Administration is using it to smooth out some of its internal processes such as sifting through data to find unpaid invoices. At the Department of Treasury, RPA is facilitating background reviews of contractor performance to help its contracting officers with their due diligence in awarding contracts, she said.

Those kinds of RPA applications could transform federal acquisition in only a few years, as they take over repetitive internal tasks, according to Newhart. OFPP, she said, plans share some of its observations on RPA with agencies soon.

Keep reading article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/05/30/rpa-procurement.aspx

May 23, 2019 By AMK

What OMB’s new ‘shared services’ policy will mean for modernization

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

Later today, Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russell Vought will be issuing a memo, “Centralized Mission Support Capabilities for the Federal Government,” which replaces all previous shared services policies. The new policy creates a system for assessing which agency functions—such as payroll or cybersecurity—have consistent standards across government and which specific departments would be best positioned to act as leaders in those areas.

The memo also includes a mandate for the rest of government to follow those agencies and puts a hiatus on new projects once functional areas are identified.

“In the past, agencies took steps to consolidate common mission-support functions internally, and in some cases, to leverage common technology or services offered by other agencies,” Vought wrote in the memo obtained by Nextgov. “The government endeavors to utilize lessons from previous successes and failures to provide a new, enhanced strategic blueprint for sharing quality services within the federal enterprise.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/policy/2019/04/exclusive-what-ombs-new-shared-services-policy-will-mean-modernization/156562/

May 7, 2019 By AMK

USDS applying its own lessons learned to fix federal hiring, acquisition

The Department of Health and Human Services is testing out an effort to improve the federal hiring process, kicking the effort off with a job notice on USAJobs.gov on April 5. The notice said HHS and USDS would accept the first 100 applicants over a two-day period to hire four people with skillsets around: IT specialist, IT customer support, IT data management and IT policy and planning.

The idea and plan has been in the works for the better part of the last six months.

“We are trying to take some of what we’ve learned about attracting some 300-to-400 really highly talented people to come work for the government, using impactful mission, the way we vet people in the interview process, code reviews, design portfolio reviews and that kind of thing,” said Eddie Hartwig, the deputy administrator of the USDS, in an interview on Ask the CIO. “The idea would be to work around an 80-90 day hiring pipeline so that lets us run a hiring project and learn from it to test out some of these theories.”

Hartwig said USDS is working closely with OPM on how they can improve the federal hiring process. He said USDS would like to conduct two or three pilots over the course of 2019.

“The goal is to get the career hiring up and running. We are on the tour of duty hiring model, but that is not sustainable for the lifetime of the government. We need great career people taking those jobs,” he said. “But we are open to working with partners in other specialty fields. The idea would be subject matter experts involved in the hiring process and vetting process so that we can deliver better results when we get to the point of hiring so you don’t get 2,000 people who are qualified for the job, but a nicely vetted list of people who are qualified and then with the preferences allowed in government are applied.”

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/ask-the-cio/2019/04/usds-applying-its-own-lessons-learned-to-fix-federal-hiring-acquisition/

February 13, 2019 By AMK

HHS’ new emerging tech contract could one day compete with other GWACs

A shared services acquisition office at Health and Human Services Department is building a contract vehicle for emerging technologies that it hopes one day will be able to compete with other massive contracts in the governmentwide acquisition contract, or GWAC, space.

The department’s Program Support Center is in the process of soliciting bids for its new Intelligence Automation/Artificial Intelligence, or IAAI, contract, a vehicle the agency expects will generate up to $49 million over five years.

Initially, the contract will be available to HHS components looking for cutting-edge technologies. But program officials have much bigger designs for the vehicle.

“We’re hoping to get a very large number of vendors who can provide that catalog of services, not just for me at Buy Smarter, but the contract is designed so we can buy and scale across HHS and, potentially, across the government space,” Lori Ruderman, who leads the HHS Buy Smarter initiative and is a senior adviser at the Program Support Center, said Tuesday during a panel discussion at the AFCEA Bethesda Health IT Summit.

“This is a foundational contract,” she continued. “Ultimately, they want to establish a GWAC, a much larger vehicle. This is just a jumping off point.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/01/hhs-new-emerging-tech-contract-could-one-day-compete-other-gwacs/154557/

How often have you heard that the government is stodgy and resistant to change? Large bureaucracies, both in business and government, do trend that way. But three curious initiatives from federal agencies occurred in the days leading to the long Memorial Day weekend.

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The Trump administration wants to make a concerted effort toward establishing a sustainable shared services ecosystem to lower costs and ensure best practices and modern infrastructure pervade government—something past administrations have tried before.

A shared services acquisition office at Health and Human Services Department is building a contract vehicle for emerging technologies that it hopes one day will be able to compete with other massive contracts in the governmentwide acquisition contract, or GWAC, space.

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