The Contracting Education Academy

Contracting Academy Logo
  • Home
  • Training & Education
  • Services
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Archives for modern technology development

November 13, 2019 By cs

Failure is an option for DoD’s experimental agency, but how much?

Since 2015, millions of dollars have been invested in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, the agency watched as some of its projects fell flat, and only about 23% the organization’s completed projects ended up in the hands of troops — but the thing is: DIU is completely fine with that.

DIU’s success statistics, delivered in a July report card to Congress, are the first long-term numbers to come out of the Defense Innovation Unit (formerly the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental) since its inception.

The metrics, which also address time-to-contract and other areas, highlight a vexing dichotomy currently playing out in the Defense landscape: How can the world’s largest military field state-of-the-art technologies faster to counter China and Russia without compromising oversight and opening the door for waste?

While successful DIU experiments ended up, or will end up, as technologies that will protect service members from drones and detect cyber vulnerabilities on DoD networks, 77% of completed prototypes DIU invested in failed to make it to contract or have yet to make it to contract. That leaves millions of taxpayer dollars on the table, which can sometimes be a hard sell for lawmakers. Congress remains at least marginally skeptical of the program built to convert private cutting edge technology for military use.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/10/special-report-failure-is-an-option-for-dods-experimental-agency-but-how-much/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: advanced technology, Defense Innovation Unit, Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, DIU, DIUx, DoD, experimentation, innovation, investment, modern technology development, prototype, prototyping, rapid prototyping, research, technological advancement, technology development, technology research, waste

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/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Digital IT Acquisition Professional Program, direct hiring authority, DITAP, HHS, IT specialist, modern technology development, OPM, train-the-trainer, USDS

Popular Topics

abuse acquisition reform acquisition strategy acquisition training acquisition workforce Air Force Army AT&L bid protest budget budget cuts competition cybersecurity DAU DFARS DHS DoD DOJ FAR fraud GAO Georgia Tech GSA GSA Schedule GSA Schedules IG industrial base information technology innovation IT Justice Dept. Navy NDAA OFPP OMB OTA Pentagon procurement reform protest SBA sequestration small business spending technology VA
Contracting Academy Logo
75 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

RSS Twitter

Search this Website

Copyright © 2023 · Georgia Tech - Enterprise Innovation Institute