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DHS acquisitions are steady despite CIO departure

Technology procurement at the Department of Homeland Security remains on steady ground despite the departure of CIO John Zangardi earlier this month for an industry job.

“We’re going to miss Dr. Zangardi, but the next CIO will come in,” said Soraya Correa, the chief acquisition officer at DHS, said on the sidelines of an industry event hosted by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management. “What I’ve seen is that CIOs are pretty much aligned with things like cloud and the strategies we’re trying to implement.”

Correa added: “Leadership changes are going to happen. That’s the nature of government. The question is: do goals and strategies still align. Dr. Zangardi and his staff knew where we were trying to go. He brought his deputy in, and we started working those strategies.”

DHS Deputy CIO, Beth Cappello, is expected to move into the acting CIO post.

On the procurement front, DHS has yet to issue its solicitation for the General Services Administration’s $50 billion, 15-year, next-generation telecommunications contract.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/11/21/dhs-acquistion-cio-change.aspx?m=1

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Civilian vendor cybersecurity certification would look very different from DoD

A civilian counterpart to the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification would need to suit the varying missions across government, according to federal deputy CIO Margie Graves.

The Defense Department is working on a new policy that will require its vendors to obtain a certification confirming the contractor’s own systems have strong enough cybersecurity to protect the department’s secrets. A civilian agency counterpart to that would look very different than what the Pentagon is developing, according to the second-ranking civilian IT official.

While the government does have a method for certifying the cybersecurity of vendors’ products — through the authority to operate, or ATO, process and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP — it does not have a program for assessing the security of the systems used by the vendors.

The Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, looks to change that with a set of 18 “key sets of capabilities for cybersecurity,” according to the draft released in September.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/10/civilian-vendor-cybersecurity-certification-would-look-very-different-dod/160982/

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How OMB can make ‘agile government’ not an oxymoron

Over the last 18 months, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) painstakingly went over nearly every federal technology policy that came out in the last 20 years with an eye toward modernization.

Every new policy, whether for cloud or identity management or data center consolidation and optimization, that came from that effort included a list of rescinded regulations which had grown old and held no value any more.

The most recent update to the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative rescinded four policies, some dating back 12 years.

The identity management policy from May terminated five policies, of which some went back to 2004.

As you can see, OMB did more than a little spring cleaning.

This exercise over the last two years or more has led to a new way of thinking about policymaking. OMB and other agencies are taking a page out of the agile software development playbook and applying this methodology to policymaking.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/09/how-omb-can-make-agile-government-not-an-oxymoron/

 

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GSA’s Thomas to leave as head of acquisition service

Alan Thomas, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, has resigned.

Multiple sources confirmed Thomas announced his decision Oct. 2nd.

“After more than two years of dedicated service leading the Federal Acquisition Service, Commissioner Alan Thomas is departing GSA to pursue a new opportunity in the private sector,” wrote GSA Administration Emily Murphy in an email to staff, which Federal News Network obtained. “I am very grateful to Alan for his commitment to our mission and the accomplishments achieved by the FAS team during his time here. “

Murphy said in her note that GSA senior advisor Julie Dunne has agreed to serve as acting FAS commissioner, beginning Oct. 15.

Thomas became FAS commissioner in June 2017 and immediately went to work on improving FAS around people, processes and technology.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/people/2019/10/gsas-thomas-to-leave-as-head-of-acquisition-service/

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Money spent through OTAs surges to more than $4 billion

Other Transaction Agreements are an increasingly popular contracting tool, and they’re affecting overall government contracting numbers.

OTA purchases across the government surged from $2.3 billion in fiscal 2017 to over $4 billion in fiscal 2018.

The numbers come from the BGOV200, an annual ranking of the top 200 federal contractors created by Bloomberg Government.

“While multiple-award contracting is expected to dominate spending for years to come, agencies are also leveraging new acquisition methods to buy goods and services more quickly and easily in ways they haven’t before,” the report states.

The OTA authority, which was expanded by the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, allows agencies to sidestep the Federal Acquisition Regulation and work with innovative, small companies that don’t normally do business with the government.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/otas-contracting-fiscal-2018-bgov/

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