Federal CIO 2016 IT OutlookThe top 2016 IT priorities of the CIOs in the biggest-spending federal departments — agency by agency.

INTRODUCTION: A YEAR OF ACTION, NOT TALK2016 is shaping up to be the year talk is set aside and federal agencies finally act on modernizing their IT systems with flexible, scalable and secure technologies that match the public’s needs.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that 2016 will see some more efforts on the part of the CIOs going forward and making their own decisions,” said Alan McQuinn with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “It’s a slow-starting engine, but when it starts, it’s going to go fast.”

With the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act in place, buoyed by the White House’s Cybersecurity Implementation Plan, agencies have never had more support to make their systems more modern and secure, and they can accomplish this more cheaply than they ever expected.

“These are the types of changes that will allow for momentum to continue,” said Steve Harris, vice president and general manager of Dell Federal Systems.

The people in charge of maintaining 2015’s momentum know that they have a fixed amount of time to accomplish the administration’s goals. Even with legacy IT changes moving at a slow pace, experts believe 2016 will be the year change takes hold.

We talked to a number of officials who are under the gun to get things moving about their top priorities for the year — and what they are doing to accomplish the administration’s goals as its time comes to a close.

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U.S. CIO Tony ScottOffice of Management and Budget

$79.49 BILLIONAdministration IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

MODERNIZATION FITARA IMPLEMENTATION AND ACQUISITION REFORM

CYBERSECURITY

Federal CIO Tony Scott spent the last 12 months laying the groundwork for what he calls a huge year in 2016 — especially for accountability. A number of key policy and legislative initiatives either launched or kicked federal agencies into action on issues from acquisition reform to cybersecurity.

Scott told FedScoop he doesn’t see those efforts slowing down in the new year.

“We have to continue to make more than a year’s progress in cybersecurity,” he said. “It’s got to be priority No. 1 across the federal agencies.”

On top of the number of deadlines federal agencies will have to hit over the next year in regards to cybersecurity, Scott is also driving deadlines tied to FITARA and moving agencies away from siloed legacy applications.

“I think we have to get creative about how we really get that going,” Scott said. “We have to get after the core engines

that are getting long in the tooth. The people who run those things are either retired or getting ready to retire, so we have a human capital issue as well as a legacy application issue.”

The common theme in all of these issues is that the federal government doesn’t have any more time to waste when it comes to modernizing its systems. 2016 must be the year action supplants conversation, Scott said.

“I don’t think we can just keep kicking the can down the road,” Scott said. “It’s time to face the music and really decide what we are going to do as a government.”

Steve Harris, vice president and general manager of Dell Federal Systems, called Scott’s message “enduring” and one that will be embraced for years.

“FITARA provides for the oversight, but more importantly, it provides the fundamental changes that can lead to the desired outcome,” he said.

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Deputy U.S. CIO Lisa SchlosserOffice of Management and Budget

$79.49 BILLIONAdministration IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

Deputy U.S. CIO Lisa Schlosser said OMB is working every angle from acquisition to development cycles when it comes to IT modernization.

“This isn’t just the CIO, this isn’t just the [chief financial officer’s] team, it’s not just acquisition,” Schlosser said. “To be successful in technology, this has to be a collaborative effort across these teams.”

While FITARA does hold CIOs more accountable than other officers, Schlosser stressed that OMB knows that unless their counterparts — especially from finance and procurement — are on the same page, results are going to be sparse.

“We recognize there is no way that we can actually take advantage of technology the right way without the CIO, CFO budget officers, as well as the acquisition officers, all working together,” she said.

A key aspect Schlosser wants agencies to focus on is a better understanding of contract-related costs. Looking at numbers from November 2015, OMB found that an achievable 10-to-15 percent efficiency savings in the way the government

manages and pays for its IT contracts would result in an annual cost reduction between $2.5 billion and $4 billion.

“If we really take the time to look at and understand our data around our contracts that we have, around the goods and services we procure, there are tons of opportunities for efficiencies where you can take those savings and reinvest that budget into the move toward more modern technologies,” Schlosser said.

OMB is also looking at how to rein in the maintenance costs of data centers and legacy systems. As of November 2015, the government is spending more than three-quarters (just under 76 percent) of its nearly $80 billion IT budget on operations and maintenance of current systems. Schlosser said she would like to see the spend on new tech development rise to the industry standard of 40 percent.

“To be perfectly honest, there are not many agencies that really should be hosting your own data centers these days,” she said. “You shouldn’t be hosting your own platform. There are cloud services now that allow you to perform these common functions across your organization in a much more effective way.”

MODERNIZATION FITARA IMPLEMENTATION AND ACQUISITION REFORM

EFFICIENCY SAVINGS

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CIO David BennettDefense Information Systems Agency

$30.47 BILLIONDefense Department IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

As the Defense Information Systems Agency moves forward with its reorganization, David Bennett, now director of the agency’s Implementation and Sustainment Center, wants to make faster, smarter and cheaper.

Bennett said those three objectives will shape how DISA approaches IT from a “transformational perspective,” as it looks to modernize the way it helps the warfighter with its mission.

“We have to get [capabilities] out there faster, we have to do it cheaper as we deliver it, and make certain that capability is sustainable over time in a way that meets whatever the budgetary situation as well as the warfighter environment changes,” Bennett told FedScoop.

To do that, Bennett is concentrating on two areas: working with industry on new cloud instances as well as finding the best use of DOD’s current IT assets.

“How can we optimize the computing infrastructure that we provide to DOD to make it more flexible, sustainable and adaptable to what the end user is wanting, and do it in a way that drives the price down,” he said.

OPTIMIZING INFRASTRUCTURE

DELIVERING CAPABILITIES FASTER

BUDGETARY SUSTAINABILITY

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CIO LaVerne CouncilVeterans Affairs Department

$4.4 BILLIONVeterans Affairs IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

LaVerne Council is using her successes from 2015 as “stepping stones” to her plans for 2016, she told staff recently.

“Every day we’re taking new steps to implement the IT Enterprise Strategy, a guidepost directly aligned to our business partners’ strategies,” she wrote in an end-of-year email. “Each accomplishment is another step forward in placing the Veteran in the center of everything we do on our quest to enable the world-class care and services they deserve.”

To achieve that, Council’s team, within a few months last year, introduced an enterprise cybersecurity plan and an enterprise program management office, and began laying the groundwork for an IT account management team, which “will provide invested, real-time strategic leadership on issues like portfolio balancing and service delivery, providing a unifying force between our business partners and our [program management office] team,” she wrote.

“We’ve unified as a team behind the IT Enterprise Strategy,” Council’s email says. “Now we must execute to completion to eliminate our material weakness.”

Finally — and most importantly, she wrote — her office is shifting its focus from operations back to the customer’s — the veteran’s — needs.

“We’ve begun to create the cultural shift that removes the focus from us — the OI&T team — and places it where it belongs, on the Veteran,” the email reads. “Every week I see or hear about IT employees embodying these key characteristics or living with the Veteran at the center of their work.”

ENTERPRISE STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

CYBERSECURITY PLAN & EXECUTION

CUSTOMER FOCUS

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Deputy CIO Herb StraussSocial Security Administration

$1.69 BILLIONSocial Security Administration IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

FINISHING BY 2017 KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

FOCUSING ON PERFORMANCE

Herb Strauss, the deputy chief information officer for the Social Security Administration, says 2016 will be a “magical year.”

That’s because the objectives coming from the Obama administration are “fixed” given that the administration only has a year to complete them, he said.

“The idea is not to carry over into the next administration,” Strauss told FedScoop. “What are the things that we think are important that will improve the condition of the agency and the work that we do, and how can we complete those things by December of 2016?”

Another key aspect driving change for Strauss is the realization that agencies need to do a better job keeping up with technology. This focus permeates everything from a better delivery of software projects to better contract management.

“What are the things that we think are important that will improve the condition of the agency and the work that we do, and how can we complete those things by December of 2016,” Strauss said. “We have a great amount of focus on that, and the commissioner gives us top cover in supporting those activities.”

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U.S. CTO Megan SmithOffice of Science and Technology Policy

$79.49 BILLIONAdministration IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

HUMAN CAPITAL CAPACITY BUILDING CYBERSECURITY

If the government ever does become the bastion of smarter IT practices, the public will have Megan Smith to thank. Not only is Smith trying to pave the way for smarter IT and tech policy, she is also trying to implant enough bright minds into the government space so federal agencies never have to play catch up again when it comes to technology.

“Our team is not a CIO team, so we are capacity builders,” Smith told FedScoop. “What’s so interesting in the federal government, it’s such huge scale and it’s dealing with very complex problems. We almost approach it like a university faculty where you have all of these disciplines coming together to discern the best path.”

Smith believes this path forward will be led by a number of newly created groups: U.S. Digital Services, 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows. She believes the work these groups are doing is in its infancy and will continue to grow after the Obama administration has left D.C.

“If we were trying to eventually get them to an IPO, they are currently a Series A,” she said.

On top of work inside the government, Smith also sees more being done on President Barack Obama’s TechHire initiative, which aims to get people into better, higher-paying IT jobs.

McQuinn said that type of training will also be crucial if the agencies are to meet the deadlines of the White House’s cybersecurity plan.

“I think a lot of what we are going to see with this kind of cyber push is institutional knowledge,” she said, adding that the training is needed if two-factor authentication is to become commonplace.

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18F Executive Director Aaron SnowGeneral Services Administration

$602 MILLIONGSA IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

SHARED SERVICES MODULAR CONTRACTING OPEN SOURCE

Aaron Snow, executive director of the General Services Administration’s tiger team 18F, said to expect to see his team “doing more to help more agencies buying, building and sharing digital services.”

Shared services could be a big focus for 18F, like its Cloud.gov platform that it announced in October. It’s “going to help our agency partners more quickly and easily and securely deploy open source-based systems that they build and that we build with them,” Snow said.

18F will also do more in the marketplace and acquisitions space — like with its RFP ghostwriting service, which helps other agencies write requests for proposals for modular contracting with open source, agile and user-centered design principles in mind.

“And you’ll continue to see us working one at a time with agency clients to build and help them buy great digital services,” he said.

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Deputy CIO for Policy & Planning Joyce HunterAgriculture Department

$2.79 BILLIONAgriculture Department IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

FITARA CYBERSECURITY WORKFORCE PLANNING

When FITARA became law last year, it left many executives across government wringing their hands over the sweeping way it centralized IT spending decisions under department CIOs.

Agriculture Department Deputy CIO Joyce Hunter’s response was different: She threw a party.

“I came from industry prior to coming into Agriculture, so we would always give kick off parties for proposals that we were going to do,” she said. “So we wanted to approach FITARA just like we were responding to an RFP.”

At the party, workers were divided into color teams and assigned tasks to help the agency respond to the legislation.

Hunter said she expects FITARA, along with cybersecurity and workforce planning, will continue to be a focus for her department in 2016.

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CIO Ann DunkinEnvironmental Protection Agency

$439.47 MILLIONEnvironmental Protection Agency IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

DIGITAL SERVICES OFFICE REORGANIZATION OFFICE CULTURE

Ann Dunkin has been mixing up the Office of Environmental Information since she became EPA’s CIO last year. With Dunkin at the helm, EPA has plunged head first into digital services and embracing ideas like agile development — and she said she’d been excited how much these ideas have gained traction.

Looking into 2016, Dunkin said she’s particularly interested in seeing the culture within the agency’s staff continue to evolve.

“When I got there, it was a little beat up,” she said. “There had been some hard times ... And this year, we delivered a tremendous amount of stuff to the agency. And people are feeling really good about what they’re seeing from OEI.”

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CIO John OwensPatent and Trademark Office

$402.1 MILLIONPatent and Trademark Office IT Budget for FY 2016

PRIORITIES:

In the midst of calls to cut into the office’s 600,000-patent-application backlog, USPTO CIO John Owens last spring debuted Patents End-to-End, a highly anticipated new system meant to make the patent examination process more efficient.

Originally, his office wanted to release a similar system for trademark examiners, called Trademarks Next Generation, in 2015 as well, but plans stalled when the office had trouble linking it with the legacy IT system.

In the year ahead, Owens is focusing on unveiling the next iteration of Patents End-to-End, as well as releasing Trademarks NextGen and a new IT system for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

PATENTS END-TO-END TRADEMARKS NEXT GENERATION

NEW IT FOR PATENT TRIAL & APPEAL BOARD

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Conclusion: 2016 — The year of the CIODespite everything that is on the docket for agency CIOs, they have something rarely seen in Washington: bipartisan support from Congress.

“Thank goodness there is such strong bipartisan support for FITARA and thank goodness that FITARA legitimately puts the CIO in charge of the strategic plans and budget,” said Steve Harris, vice president and general manager of Dell Federal Systems.

Even with that support, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation analyst Alan McQuinn said it is going to be the funding that matters the most when it comes to the goals of FITARA and the cybersecurity plan.

“In legacy systems, FITARA is coming in handy because it gives agencies the ability to update their systems

in order to do the types of cybersecurity they want to do,” he said “It’s going to be slow going, but the steps they are taking are really important. Whether they do it in a timely manner really depends on whether they continue to get funding from Congress.”

Harris said industry will do whatever it can to help agencies continue taking those steps.

“It’s our intention to work with every agency we can and understand what the legacy IT systems are,” he said. “As we go out and attempt to gain this information, we will help agencies move forward and optimize these areas of IT.

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