Community Member

Member since 2 years ago

Badges

• Newbie

9 ideas posted

2 comments 96 votes

289 points View the Leaderboard

Department/Agency:

USDA

Community Member is a member of:

• Crop Acreage Reporting System Ideas
• FSA Electronic Suggestion Box

Owned Ideas

Ideas contributed by Community Member

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  12 votes

  This idea is active.
  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  Science scholarships and internships

  Award sciences scholarships to high performing students (not just need based) contingent upon them joining a federal internship program in the sciences (such as for the National Weather Service, medial research, etc.). I believe this will provide more incentive to students to pursue an education in the sciences. Also, provide matching funds to agencies that offer up internship programs. Some agencies are not spending ...more »

  Award sciences scholarships to high performing students (not just need based) contingent upon them joining a federal internship program in the sciences (such as for the National Weather Service, medial research, etc.). I believe this will provide more incentive to students to pursue an education in the sciences. Also, provide matching funds to agencies that offer up internship programs. Some agencies are not spending much effort on internship programs, because they're focusing their limited funds on replacing retiring employees with new skilled, experienced individuals, but this is leaving potential college grads out of the mix.

  « less full details »

  Add your comment for Idea: Science scholarships and internships

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  13 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Redundant IT Organizations

  Within the Department of Agriculture, not only does each agency have its own IT organization (which I don't think is a bad thing), but the Department OCIO has two competitive IT organization in ITS and NITC. In addition, the OCFO has their own very substantial IT organization and a significant data center. I suspect that the USDA is not an anomaly in this, and that this happens in other departments as well. This not ...more »

  Within the Department of Agriculture, not only does each agency have its own IT organization (which I don't think is a bad thing), but the Department OCIO has two competitive IT organization in ITS and NITC. In addition, the OCFO has their own very substantial IT organization and a significant data center. I suspect that the USDA is not an anomaly in this, and that this happens in other departments as well.

  This not only increases costs of the general lights-on costs, but it also drastically increases costs of implementing projects, as the various components of said projects must integrate between these disparate data centers. Anyone who has worked on a large IT project knows that integration is the hardest part to make work. Not only does this make the projects more difficult (and more expensive) to implement, but it adds an ongoing cost and reduces reliability, as each system now has even more possible points of failure that must be monitored and managed, more networks and broadband connections must be deployed and managed. etc.

  « less full details »

  Add your comment for Idea: Redundant IT Organizations

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  19 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Whistleblower line for government waste

  Provide a confidential contact point at OMB or GAO elsewhere that allows for employees and contractors to report significant government waste, such that it can be investigated by OMB.

  4 comments for Idea: Whistleblower line for government waste

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  6 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Evaluate IT projects by evaluating staff confidence

  It is a fact of life that most large IT projects fail. Federal oversight (OMB, etc.) seeks input on major IT projects by issuing data calls, surveying executive leadership, etc. However, data can be manipulated to say what you want it to say, and leaders will rarely volunteer the issues in their projects. A major metric in all of these projects should be to capture and gather the confidence level and concerns of the ...more »

  It is a fact of life that most large IT projects fail. Federal oversight (OMB, etc.) seeks input on major IT projects by issuing data calls, surveying executive leadership, etc. However, data can be manipulated to say what you want it to say, and leaders will rarely volunteer the issues in their projects.

  A major metric in all of these projects should be to capture and gather the confidence level and concerns of the staffs working on these projects. The staff is often painfully aware of the challenges being encountered in the project, and may expose decisions that may deserve independent review.

  All in all, when conducting these sorts of oversight audits, OMB should not just take a top-down investigative approach, but also a bottom up approach, such that they can identify failing projects earlier, and either ensure a course correction, or cancel the project early before excessive money is wasted.

  « less full details »

  Add your comment for Idea: Evaluate IT projects by evaluating staff confidence

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  7 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Offer contracts to propose and implement cost savings measures

  Offer up contracts to potential contractors to propose and implement federal cost savings measures. Contractors would openly propose a cost savings measure, and if approved, would then negotiate a percent of savings payment such that when implemented, they get paid a percentage of the proven, metrics-based cost savings. The contractor would be expected to provide implementation support for the cost savings measure.

  2 comments for Idea: Offer contracts to propose and implement cost savings measures

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  6 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Improve information security procedures

  Many federal information security process, procedures and policies (notably C&A) are mostly a paperwork exercise, and do little to nothing to actually improving the security posture of the organization. The corporate space is learning this, and is de-scoping many of the activities that do not add value from external audits. The federal government needs to look very closely at C&A and other security processes, and validate ...more »

  Many federal information security process, procedures and policies (notably C&A) are mostly a paperwork exercise, and do little to nothing to actually improving the security posture of the organization. The corporate space is learning this, and is de-scoping many of the activities that do not add value from external audits. The federal government needs to look very closely at C&A and other security processes, and validate that they really add value, not just red tape.

  « less full details »

  Add your comment for Idea: Improve information security procedures

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  23 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Cube hoteling

  Many federal employees are now teleworking 1-3 days per week. However, when they're not at work, their desk sits empty. This eliminates much of the promised cost reduction of telework. If employees desire to telework several days per week, their cubes should be shared amongst multiple teleworkers, and should be first come first serve. This will significantly reduce overall federal office space needs, and associated ...more »

  Many federal employees are now teleworking 1-3 days per week. However, when they're not at work, their desk sits empty. This eliminates much of the promised cost reduction of telework. If employees desire to telework several days per week, their cubes should be shared amongst multiple teleworkers, and should be first come first serve. This will significantly reduce overall federal office space needs, and associated costs.

  Similarly, where a federal office (such as GSA) is available closer to the employee's home, they should have the option of reporting to work at the closer office.

  « less full details »

  1 comment for Idea: Cube hoteling

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  10 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Allow supervisors more options for providing employee incentives

  In the corporate world, even with slim budgets, supervisors have many options to provide incentives to highly performing employees. They may purchase a $50 gift card to a local restaurant, host a pizza party, or take their team out to lunch. In the federal government, this can only be done if the supervisor pays out of their pocket. Also, it seems that it is not possible for the agency to fund team building activities, ...more »

  In the corporate world, even with slim budgets, supervisors have many options to provide incentives to highly performing employees. They may purchase a $50 gift card to a local restaurant, host a pizza party, or take their team out to lunch. In the federal government, this can only be done if the supervisor pays out of their pocket. Also, it seems that it is not possible for the agency to fund team building activities, etc. This should be changed.

  « less full details »

  1 comment for Idea: Allow supervisors more options for providing employee incentives

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

• I agree

  Voting is Disabled

  9 votes

  This idea is active.
  Ideas to Make Other Parts of Government More Efficient and Effective »

  Registry and transfer of software licenses

  There should be a central registry to register federal software licenses owned and more importantly, the ability to offer up licenses that you no longer require to be advertised and then transferred to another agency if they desire to take over maintenance of them. Enterprise software is incredibly expensive, and the way licensing usually works, you pay a huge up-front purchase price and 20% maintenance each following ...more »

  There should be a central registry to register federal software licenses owned and more importantly, the ability to offer up licenses that you no longer require to be advertised and then transferred to another agency if they desire to take over maintenance of them. Enterprise software is incredibly expensive, and the way licensing usually works, you pay a huge up-front purchase price and 20% maintenance each following year. So, for an enterprise database, you may pay $25,000 per processor to acquire the software, but each year after that you only pay $5,000 per processor for maintenance and support.

  If you choose to give up a given software package because you don't need it any longer, or just for budget reduction purchases, in many cases there may be another agency that could use it, and the licenses could be transferred. Because this doesn't happen, multiple agencies pay the up-front 100% fee, when they could trade the software and just pay the 20% fee.

  Similarly, because there is no common registry of software owned, different organizations within an agency will often end up buying the same software multiple times, unnecessarily. In some cases, the licenses are fully redundant. Even if not, the two organizations could often pool their purchases to get a better discount.

  Not all software licenses allow this, but I think it would also make sense to modify the FAR to state that all software licenses acquired by the federal government must be transferable within the federal government. We are such a huge customer that the software providers would certainly comply in order to take part in the federal market.

  « less full details »

  Add your comment for Idea: Registry and transfer of software licenses

  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

Displaying all 9 Ideas