Contracting

  • The Office of Management and Budget wants to create a cyber playbook, and a digital services teams focused on IT security. Tony Scott, the federal CIO, said industry also must play a bigger role by automatically enabling two-factor authentication and using more secure chips.

    June 19, 2015
  • Government spends 22 percent more on local contractors in the past two years even through a tough budget climate and sequestration. Lexy Kessler is partner in charge of the government contracting practice at Aronson. She tells In Depth with Francis Rose there\'s still room for contractors to grow if they advantage of the right opportunities.

    June 18, 2015
  • The Senate is on its third week of debate on the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. Vendors will be happy about a provision that reauthorizes DoD\'s Rapid Innovation Program or Defense Innovation Initiative. Alex Rossino is a principal research analyst for Deltek\'s federal industry analysis team. He\'s looking at the NDAA and tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the research and development opportunities that look promising in fiscal 2016.

    June 18, 2015
  • 18F and the Office of Integrated Technology Services release a request for quote to Schedule 70 vendors to provide agile development services. The 5-year contract has a ceiling of $25 million.

    June 18, 2015
  • Every agency will have a digital services team to shore up IT acquisitions and delivery. Lots of outsiders say the talent attraction challenge will be hard for agencies. Jennifer Tress is director of talent for the General Services Administration\'s 18F Innovation Lab. She tells In Depth with Francis Rose that government leaders are banking on selling the mission to bring people in.

    June 17, 2015
  • The General Services Administration\'s 18F needs some help. Agencies are asking for their services around agile development and Dev/Ops at a rate that 18F can\'t keep up with. So they are turning to industry. Chris Cairns is the director of 18-F Consulting. Dave Zvenyach is the project lead for the new agile blanket purchase agreement that 18F released on Wednesday. They tell Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller about the BPA and how it will help agencies move toward a more agile approach for IT projects.

    June 17, 2015
  • The IRS would face even greater financial constraints and federal building construction would grind nearly to a halt under a $20.2 billion FY 2016 spending bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee.

    June 17, 2015
  • The Office of Management and Budget tells agencies they have 30 days to secure their networks. It appears to be reacting to the second major cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management. That second breach puts military and intelligence security clearance holders at risk. You can read the details about the second breach at Federal News Radio dot com. Dave McClure is chief strategist at the Veris Group, and former associate administrator at the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration. He\'s writing about a few ground rules your agency should think about for better cybersecurity. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the \"cut and paste\" approach to collecting threat information and what that means for agencies.

    June 16, 2015
  • Every agency in government will roll out its own Buyer\'s Club program. It will be *based* on the one at the Department of Health and Human Services but it shouldn\'t be a copy of the HHS model, according to Anne Rung, the administrator of Federal Procurement Policy. Bryan Sivak, a former chief technology officer for HHS, was a driving force behind the Idea Lab and the Buyer\'s Club at the agency. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the origins of the Idea Lab, and how the Buyer\'s Club came out of it.

    June 16, 2015
  • The Obama administration admits the government doesn\'t need all of the 2.8 billion square feet of property it owns and leases worldwide. But it\'s struggled to identify the property it can safely shed. New tools out this summer could provide a breakthrough.

    June 16, 2015
  • It only took 15 years for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to issue guidance for agencies on how best to use reverse auctions. And when OFPP finally did on June 2, it was disappointing to say the least.

    June 15, 2015
  • Setting the record straight on what exactly Stan Kaczmarczyk said on June 2 about the cloud cybersecurity effort known as Federal Risk Authorization and Management Program (FedRAMP). There have been several blogs and some articles that either didn\'t understand or misconstrued his comments, which has set some in the federal community off in the wrong direction.

    June 15, 2015
  • With all the focus on the OPM cyber breach, let\'s not overlook the simple fact that despite what some would call urgent and compelling needs, the government has rules and regulations that still need to be followed.

    June 15, 2015
  • Over the next year, GSA will work with other agencies and industry will come up with a set of risk indicators and create access to multiple data sources for contracting officers to better determine and understand the supply chain risk of the technology they are buying.

    June 12, 2015