By Dennis D. McDonald Here’s some light reading: the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General’s “Audit of the Project Management Accountability System Implementation.” Known as “PMAS,” the system was put in place in 2009 to provide better oversight of the VA’s troubled IT development projects. This was done in light ofRead… Read more »
In Preparing your agency for big cuts ahead, Tom Fox wrote this about the coming Federal agency staff reductions: Kill the rumor mill. Agencies have well-developed rumor mills, and I’ve heard from many federal employees that the anxiety and frustrations associated with the budget uncertainties is high. While water cooler gossip is inevitable, as aRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Back in February 2009 in Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board I wrote the following about making Federal stimulus spending data more accessible and “transparent” to the public: Whatever methods are developed to represent and report on the various processes that are involved in implementing theRead… Read more »
Federal Computer Week recently published my op-ed piece Why best practices won’t fix Federal IT. I’d be very interested in hearing from GovLoop members what they think of it. The idea came from the “25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management” released by Vivek Kundra on December 10 of last year. No. 10Read… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Last year I published Are Federal Acquisition Practices Accelerating the Move of Government Computing to the Cloud? I wondered then if complexities in cumbersome government acquisition processes might have the unintended consequence of stimulating a move to “cloud computing” and a resulting shift in both IT infrastructure and application architectures.Read… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. More than 5 years ago my first exposure to “web 2.0” based professional networking was via Linkedin. As an independent IT management consultant it seemed natural to use web based networking to grow and develop professional relatiomships. Combined with my blogging I embarked on a rewarding series of professional experiencesRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. There are many discussions going on about the OMB’s recently issued Social Media, Web-Based Interactive Technologies, and the Paperwork Reduction Act. Basically, this guidance makes it easier for Federal agencies to use variety of social media and “web 2.0” tools for interacting with the public without having to go throughRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Does increasing government transparency help or hurt professional and trade associations? Here are two answers: 1. Government Transparency Helps Associations. By making government actions more visible to the public, the need for specialized associations of individuals and organizations is increased because: Groups with specialized knowledge are more able than membersRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. My friend Bob Davis at MILVETS was kind enough to forward a link to the article 2020 vision: 10 things you’ll see on the Web in the next 10 years by Shawn McCarthy in the January 26 Government Computer News. While McCarthy’s list holds few surprises, I would have madeRead… Read more »
By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for “open government.” But there are problems inherent to real-world democracy that can’t be automatically solved by making the workings of government more visible to the public. This is especially true about the reporting by government of data collected from large and complex populationsRead… Read more »