Reporter’s Notebook

Department of Health and Human Services CISO Janet Vogel said the escape room training is one of several innovative ways to help employees understand why cybersecurity matters.

The Labor Department is moving from 13 different HR offices, 26 different IT application organizations, four different procurement organizations and numerous personnel security offices down to one of each as part of its internal consolidation.

GAO and the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee released annual reports highlighting continued decreases in bid protests, by 16%, and in the number of companies suspended or debarred.

At the annual Defense Information Systems Agency’s forecast to industry, executives told more than 1,000 contractors about plans to expand the browser isolation pilot and test the use of blockchain for logistics.

Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, said recent ransomware attacks on Baltimore, Louisiana and Texas brought to light the need for a more coordinated federal, state, local and private sector response to cyber attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security released two solicitations seeking industry help to consolidate and modernize as many as 22 legacy financial management systems for a fifth time in the last 15 years.

OFPP and ACT-IAC partnered to collect and describe acquisition innovations as a way to reduce the friction of acquisition through a new Periodic Table of Acquisition Elements.

OMB, the CIO Council and GAO are revamping the FITARA scorecard to include metrics around citizen services, customer satisfaction and mission delivery.

Margaret Weichert, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, says she is deeply concerned about structural impediments to bring agility to government.

The Air Force’s Cloud One program faces a protest by Leidos, while the Army names a new project manager for data and the CIO Council upgrades its website for the first time since 2017.

Several recent updates to federal IT policies opened the door for OMB to consider how the concept of agile for federal regulations could work, while the IBM Center for the Business of Government and NAPA are looking at this approach too.

With only a few more months left for some service members to transfer GI Bill benefits to dependents, a trio of Senators want to put a halt to the change.

The Defense Department is considering changing manpower policies to lure more reserve recruits and retain the ones it has.

Kshemendra Paul joined the Veterans Affairs Department as its new chief data officer after spending the last almost three years at the Homeland Security Department. Meanwhile, SBA hires Bill Hunt from OMB and Labor promotes a new deputy CIO.