Weekly Round-Up: October 13-17, 2014

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:50

John Kamensky Series of Articles on Procurement Reform. Federal News Radio asks: “Is it time for fresh procurement reform or just a rereading of existing law?” And its staff has responded with over a dozen stories over the course of the week, covering more discrete topics such as a 20-year timeline of reforms, pointers on program management, the importance of leadership and organizational culture, and more. A great collection, worth the time of anyone trying to understand the breadth of issues involved. Cathleen Garman, Designated Expert.

Is Recovery Act a Model for Ebola?

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:47

Little did I realize that the future would come so quickly, with President Obama’s announcement that he was appointing Ron Klain as the Ebola Czar! Klain, who was chief of staff for both vice president Al Gore and Joe Biden, was a key player in the implementation of the Recovery Act.

The forum on the Recovery Act, Five Years Later was kicked off by Klain’s former point person, Ed DeSeve, who in 2009 and 2010 led the day-to-day efforts to coordinate the oversight of $787 billion in spending across 26 major federal agencies via more than 200 programs.

Carter Hewgley, FEMA: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:44

When Carter Hewgley joined FEMA in 2011, the organization was focused on two things, the timely delivery of services and the processes required to collect and organize all the resources to support those services. FEMA was a “disaster-driven” organization, more focused on responding to the next emergency, rather than reviewing the lessons learned from a previous emergency. Although there were “analytical cells” across the agency and programs, enterprise-level analytical capability was still at its infancy.

Creating Innovation Offices That Work

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:41

Innovation offices are being established by many governments—including cities (Austin, Philadelphia, Chicago), states (Maryland, Colorado, and Pennsylvania), and federal agencies (NARA, HHS, State Department). But not all offices are organized in the same way, and not all have the same mission or metrics. A new report, “A Guide for Making Innovation Offices Work,”by Rachel Burstein and Alissa Black detail how these various innovation groups fall into structural categories and how their success metrics map to their missions.

The Government Can Drive Effective Implementation of Health Information to Improve Care

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:36

In order to benefit from the stimulus investment made in transforming healthcare, the government will need to support industry by incentivizing the effective use of tools and infrastructure that leverage information to improve care delivery. The groundwork in standards and interoperability laid by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) demonstrates that establishing a working infrastructure is challenging, but achievable.

Weekly Roundup: October 20-24, 2014

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:34

Dan Chenok Interesting and informative infographic on national cybersecurity preparedness. Interesting notes on identity management and recent financial executive order. Interesting observations on open source and security. John Kamensky Countering ID Theft. Jason Miller, Federal News Radio, reports that the White House is giving agencies a lead role in combatting ID theft, noting: “President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on Oct.

Dean Silverman, IRS: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:32

Mr. Silverman joined the IRS in 2011 to build an advanced analytics program.  The primary objectives for his analytics program are to reduce fraud and improper payments. His focus has been reducing Identity Theft and fraud in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program; reducing the tax gap (the difference between what is due from taxpayers and what is actually collected); and to identify improvements to core compliance challenges.

Mr. Silverman offers the following lessons when using analytics:

Weekly Roundup: October 27-31, 2014

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:30

Dan Chenok Big Data helps government move toward sustainability goals: http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2014/10/governments-sustainability-efforts-present-big-data-opportunity/97844/?oref=ng-HPriver As Cyber Security Awareness month concludes, a view of how to build a strong cyber team: http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/31/building-top-notch-information-security-teams.aspx Agency FISMA reporting adapts with greater reliance on continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM), says former CISO Pat Howard: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/239/3731156/Why-this-years-FISMA-drill-is-different John K

Federal Program Inventory Deemed Useless

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:28

Senator Coburn has long campaigned against the seeming incomprehensibility of the federal government’s many programs. He sponsored two pieces of legislation in 2010 to address his concerns. The first bill requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to annually assess the fragmentation, overlap and duplication of federal programs. The second bill requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to create and publish on the Internet an inventory of all federal programs. Background.

Gerald Ray, Social Security Administration: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes

Submitted by on Tue, 01/23/2018 - 13:26

How do you measure and improve the performance of a group of people who see themselves as experts at what they do? This is the challenge that faced Gerald Ray, who set out to improve the performance of the Social Security Administration’s 1,500 administrative law judges in order to speed their decision-making process and improve the accuracy of their decisions. He set out to do this using analytic tools and targeted training sessions. An Interest in Analytics and Law. Mr. Ray’s interest in applying analytics to the law started when he attended law school.

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