With many agencies still struggling to implement the requirements in the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), a new white paper from Censeo Consulting Group and Rich Beutel—the original staff author of FITARA—makes ten recommendations to help agencies take the necessary steps. Kareem El-Alaily, managing director at Censeo, Beutel and Mike Hettinger, managing principal of Hettinger Strategy Group LLC, write that the study began as an analysis of the FITARA implementation scorecard, but the authors quickly began to realize that in many ways, the scorecard didn’t line up with the FITARA objectives. The authors make ten recommendations, many of which center on improving communication, clarifying authority, and delineating accountability.
Here’s a summary of the recommendations (read the full report here):
Recommendation 1: Enhance communications across HOGR, GAO and OMB to align oversight focus.
Recommendation 2: Clarify FITARA Roles of OMB, the CIO Council, GAO and HOGR, and empower the FITARA Coordinator role.
Recommendation 3: Enhance data sharing between OMB and GAO, and collectively re-build the Scorecard.
Recommendation 4: Create a formal FITARA Working Council comprised of agency FITARA, leads reporting to the CIO Council.
Recommendation 5: Hold Agency leaders responsible for FITARA implementation, not just CIOs.
Recommendation 6: Reassess the Scorecard methodology
Recommendation 7: Revamp current Scorecard metrics to incentivize better outcomes.
Recommendation 8: Expand the Scorecard to capture new metrics and incentivize new behaviors.
Recommendation 9: Encourage OMB to take a more prescriptive role in the FITARA implementation process.
Recommendation 10: Enhance transparency by implementing a universal IT cost taxonomy.