Federal shared services takes hold through Uncle Sam's List

Uncle Sam's list is up and running, and is one example of how shared services is taking hold across government.

Lisa Schlosser, the federal government's deputy chief information officer, said the website lists more than 100 shared services and more are on the way.

The Office of Management and Budget called for the creation of Uncle Sam's list as part of its shared services implementation guide released in April.

Uncle Sam's List is an internal community within the MAX.gov collaboration site that is maintained by the CIO Council's Shared Services subcommittee.

The list provides information on IT shared service areas, providers and related existing contract vehicles.

The fact that in a few short months agencies are populating the site with shared services shows the impact of OMB's strategy, which it released in May 2012.

OMB also established the Shared Services Executive Council of all the providers. She said the group shares best practices and discuss where the value of shared services is coming from.

She added the broader definition of shared services is helping agencies get their arms around the concept better. OMB is encouraging agencies not just to look at the shared service providers for human resources or financial management, but look at consolidating systems or contracts internally too.

One example is the Commerce Department, which reduced the number of contracts to buy computers.

The agency said it's paying 35 percent less for desktop computers than it did previously, and is saving more than $200 million on administrative costs more broadly.

Agencies are finding those opportunities in two ways.

Schlosser said PortfolioStat continues to bring the CXO community together to prioritize opportunities.

Secondly, agencies submitted to OMB an enterprise roadmap earlier this year as required under the May 2012 strategy.

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio.com
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OMB tells CFOs to run SAVE Award ideas by broader audience

The White House is using a restaurant-style rating system for the 2012 SAVE Award contest, and it wants agency chief financial officers to be the food critics.

The administration is asking federal employees to rank money-saving ideas with one, two or three stars — with three being the top-rated, most likely to save the government money.

"In addition to reviewing and rating each SAVE Award submission, CFOs should pay particular attention to those submissions that their agency ranks most favorably," wrote Danny Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, in a June 27 memo to CFOs. "The MAX Community site will include a check-box to indicate that the 'Idea is Recommended' by the agency. Agencies should provide this designation to the best candidates for consideration of the SAVE Award. This designation should be limited to between five and 10 ideas per agency, depending on the size of the agency and the number of submissions. Before an agency indicates that a particular idea is recommended by checking this box, the CFO must confirm with internal agency programmatic, operations, communications and other stakeholders, as well as agency leadership, that all parties are comfortable with moving forward with the idea should it ultimately be selected as a finalist for the SAVE Award."

The administration will kick off the 2012 SAVE Award contest in a few weeks and provide agencies with a list of ideas in the next two months, Werfel said.

"To avoid repeating ideas, to the degree practical, agencies are encouraged to review recommended SAVE award submissions from prior years to determine whether analysis has already been done about the validity and merits of a particular idea," Werfel wrote. "These ratings and recommendations will serve as the starting point for a deliberative process to determine which submissions may be considered as finalists for the SAVE Award. Following submission of agency ratings of SAVE Award candidates, OMB staff will review the submissions and engage further with agencies as appropriate."

The 2012 guidance is different than the 2011 memo. Werfel is asking CFOs to work more closely with the program areas before finalizing their list of money saving ideas.

-Jason Miller, FederalNewsRadio.com
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The MAX Federal Community from industry's perspective

Shahid Shah
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Collaboration -- and making it happen. We've been telling you about the MAX Federal Community -- a wiki that the government is using to formulate budgets.

What about the industry perspective, though?

Shahid Shah is the founder and CEO of Netspective Communications. He talks about what a wiki is.

Read more about it:
MAX Federal Community wiki helps shape budget
DorobekInsider: OMB encourages collaboration about open government using an existing tool
National Academy of Public Administration's Collaboration Project's case study: MAX Federal Community

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OMB promotes fiscal cooperation

The Office of Management and Budget is encouraging the budget and financial management communities to cooperate as both move to consolidate and standardize under lines of business initiatives.

Budgeting and financial management have a relationship, said Andrew Schoenbach, chief of OMB’s Budget Systems Branch and policy lead of the Budget Formulation and Execution Line of Business consolidation initiative.

Federal budgeting decisions are made by a dynamic process driven by policy, then financial management ensures that individuals do what they say they will, he said at a conference today sponsored by the Association of Government Accountants’ Washington, D.C., chapter and the Greater Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Under the Budget Formulation and Execution LOB, a working group has identified intersections between budgeting and financial management processes in an exposure draft of a Touch-Points document, he said. The group currently is mapping budget execution processes and data flow among agencies, the Treasury Department, OMB and Congress. The goal is to reach a governmentwide consensus process and data model to support the automated data exchange between budget execution and financial management systems.

The Touch-Points document is available at the MAX Federal Community, a wiki that is a key component in developing the Budget Formulation and Execution LOB. MAX has grown to 6,300 federal users. Originally it was for information and document sharing about budget formulation, but it has expanded to other subject communities, such as financial management, homeland security, human capital and performance.

The budget LOB makes 10 capabilities available as common services, including agency budget tools, managing integration, analysis, data collection and tracking, collaboration, and document production. The Budget Formulation and Execution Manager is a shared budget formulation service among six agencies. The manager originally was a Treasury product, but it was modified to be more generic so it could be more widely used. A performance-measure manager module was added recently to establish and track performance metrics, Schoenbach said.

-Mary Mosquera, FCW.com
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