Volume: 18

No: 5

Publication date: 03/96

The AFFIRMation On Line

A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR FEDERAL INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

AFFIRM, the Association For Federal Information Resources Management, is a Washington, DC-based council of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils. It is a nonprofit, volunteer organization whose goal is to improve the management of information within the Federal Government.

A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR FEDERAL INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

AFFIRM, the Association For Federal Information Resources Management, is a Washington, DC-based council of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils. It is a nonprofit, volunteer organization whose goal is to improve the management of information within the federal government.



A New Game In Town

by Bob Golas, Director
Business Development Oracle Government

The IT procurement environment in which government and industry have co-existed for many years has changed substantially. Government reform initiatives refurbished IT acquisition practices by focusing on making procurements easier, faster, and less expensive for the federal procurer and by bringing federal procurement practices more in line with commercial practices. What are these IT practices? They involve changes in GSA's Multiple Award Schedules (MAS), DISA's Blanket Ordering Agreements (BOA), and Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contracting vehicles.

Are you thinking, "But some of these aren't new?" You are 100 percent correct. What is new are the rules associated with their use. For the most part, ID/IQ contracts and DISA's DoD BOAs are now available to all government agencies. However, the biggest change in this area occurred with GSA's Multiple Awards Schedule. Some of the relatively recent changes to the MAS include no order limitations, no synopsizing in the CBD, and the ability to renegotiate prices for larger volume purchases. In the past, the MAS was viewed as a convenient vehicle to purchase only small quantities of products at established schedule prices considered "fair and reasonable." The MAS was not considered an acquisition vehicle for major programs--this was left to the RFP process in an effort to improve pricing. This has changed with the new initiatives.

One reason for acquisition reform was that a normal procurement took too long and cost too much. This was especially true in the time-sensitive IT market place where, it is argued, technology changes every 12 to 18 months with procurements extending beyond the life of procured technology. The GSA MAS now responds to this dilemma by reducing acquisition time. With major limitations for its use gone, the MAS is now a useful, flexible, and competitive procurement vehicle. Government program managers can bypass the onerous RFP process which takes time and money and, without synopsizing, purchase directly off the MAS without regard to maximum order limits. Also, since agencies can renegotiate large quantity pricing, the agencies can ostensibly obtain pricing comparative to ID/IQ contracts.

Vendors are also realizing the advantages of these new MAS benefits and are promoting its use. With increased emphasis on commercial off-the-shelf products and solutions, the potential for use by state and local governments, and for adding services, GSA's MAS finally has the potential to become a major federal procurement vehicle, if not the major vehicle.

Government and industry management -- take heed! These changes could mean fewer RFPs. However, this does not mean that ID/IQ contracts will become a thing of the past. We will see ID/IQ-type contracts studied further to determine the real value such contracts add and to see what improvements, if any, are needed. Until then, I believe we are witnessing the emergence of a new acquisition champion.



Editor's Notes
The editors invite AFFIRM's members to submit articles and to suggest article ideas for future editions of the AFFIRMation. Forward your articles and suggestions to either Ava Arnone at aarnone@mrj.com or Joe Lentini at lentini.joseph@epamail.epa.gov.

A reminder - send all membership inquiries, forms, and dues to Beth Koehler at the Annapolis address listed on the back page of this newsletter.



The President's Corner
The Winds of Change

Our recent breakfast meeting with the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) was an excellent event. The title of the seminar, "The Winds of Change - The Turbulence and Challenges Facing Federal IT Executives," was indeed descriptive of the seminar discussions. The speakers were all seasoned federal IT community professionals positioned to see and describe the forces at work creating the radical changes we are now confronting. I am pleased that AFFIRM was able to partner with ITAA and IAC to sponsor this event, and want to especially acknowledge the fantastic leadership and energy that Deirdre Murray has infused into our program agenda this year.

The focal point of the seminar was the Sixth Annual ITAA Survey of Senior IRM Officials, published in October 1995, entitled "Winds of Change - Managing Information Technology in a Refocused and Downsized Federal Government." I found several of the following points made in the report, and emphasized in the seminar, especially noteworthy:

• Continued pressure on dollar and FTE budgets will push agencies to more consolidation and outsourcing.
• Agencies face a serious IT skill problem;
• Performance measurement and tracking is a serious undertaking;
• Agency leadership will need to increase involvement and commitment if BPR is to succeed;
• The burden of legacy systems will make enterprisewide computing strategies difficult to attain;
• The strong push to COTS while very feasible for internal administrative systems, is challenging for most program mission systems.

Exciting Happenings

On March 21, FedCenter and AFFIRM jointly announced the availability of AFFIRM's World Wide Web site (see Webmasters section for more information.) I see tremendous impact to our association as a result of maintaining a web presence, especially since it extends our "reach" far beyond the metro D.C. area. Using the site, IT professionals can now access our white papers and newsletters, register for seminars, become members, connect to our industry partners, and participate in AFFIRM's Emerging Issue Forum. FedCenter, a Sustaining Partner for AFFIRM, is providing and maintaining the web presence; special thanks to David Beers and John Jenkins of FedCenter for making our partnership arrangement such a success. I encourage readers to visit our site at www.fedcenter.com/affirm.
- - - -
> To support the AFFIRM core objective to support IT education, we recently established a $1,000 scholarship in AFFIRM's name under the 1996 FGIPC Scholarship Program. We will celebrate this scholarship, awarded in May, at our June luncheon. Please mark your calendars now!
- - - -
The Emerging Issues Forum has started another study. This one focuses on the issues related to the position of federal CIO. Under Marv Gordon and Mark Day's leadership, the study is off to a great start (see article on AFFIRM's sponsorship of FOSE breakfast later in this edition of the AFFIRMation). We will bring CIO-related concerns and the suggestions of AFFIRM members and other forum participants to the federal IT community in June through the issuance of our second white paper.

Paul Wohlleben



Members In The News
AFFIRM's President Honored

AFFIRM's President, Paul Wohlleben, was selected by a panel of 8 senior IT public and private sector IT managers as one of the top 100 IT personnel across our industry. This annual recognition is sponsored by Federal Computer Week and provides industrywide recognition (i.e., both the public and private sectors) for exceptional accomplishments in the IT arena. Paul's recognition cites his association with AFFIRM and the impact AFFIRM is having across the IT community. As Paul noted, he believes this award "really represents recognition of our collective good work in making AFFIRM a key player on the federal IT landscape. Congratulations to us all!"

Bob Golas Joins The Oracle Team
The Federal Computer Week's March 18 issue reported that AFFIRM's Bob Golas joined Oracle Government Systems in Herndon, VA on March 4. Bob was formerly the Government Relations Manager for Informix Software, Inc.'s Federal Operations. At Oracle, Bob assumes new responsibilities as the Oracle Government System's Director of Business Development for Civilian Agencies. Best of luck, Bob!



Emerging Issues Forum (EIF)
AFFIRM's Emerging Issues Forum (EIF) is open to AFFIRM members and nonmembers from both the public and private sectors. EIF's goal is to provide an opportunity for participation in development and implementation of policy affecting federal Information Technology (IT) and Information Resources Management (IRM) on cutting-edge issues. AFFIRM, through the EIF, selects and presents critical emerging issues for debate, framing and analysis. We then present findings and recommendations, based upon our unique private/public point-of-view, for consideration by the IT and IRM community.

The AFFIRM Emerging Issues Forum is presently involved in a study project to define critical success factors for the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). As a first step, a small group of AFFIRM representatives is conducting interviews with CIO's and CIO-level personnel in both government and industry. Next, upon conclusion of the interviews, AFFIRM will sponsor a broader forum where others will review the interview results in summary, discuss issues raised, and provide insight on those issues. AFFIRM will publish its "White Paper" on the results of this study in June of 1996.



Webmaster Update
On March 21, 1996, AFFIRM announced, in collaboration with FedCenter, initiation of it's own Internet World Wide Web (WWW) home page.

FedCenter, developed by the InterFed Group, is the first independent "cluster" web site providing one stop information shopping for the government information technology (IT) community. Government IT users, specifiers, and purchasers can surf to the FedCenter site to simply access and retrieve information from hundreds of IT product and service vendors. In addition to product and service information, FedCenter carries additional value-added content, including listings and registration services for more than 15,000 information technology training courses, seminars, and events in Washington and across the nation.

FedCenter is also an AFFIRM Sustaining Partner and provides AFFIRM's Internet presence as part of that partnership arrangement. In fact, Mr. David Beers, President of the InterFed Group, says that the "FedCenter was designed specifically to address the need for clustering or focusing information on the Web to better serve the needs of the government IT community" and their "relationship with AFFIRM further underlines (the InterFed Group's) commitment to add value to the government IT community."

From AFFIRM's perspective, our "new web site will enable AFFIRM to dramatically improve the association's operations and to extend our reach to new potential members," said Paul Wohlleben, President, AFFIRM. "AFFIRM has traditionally served members in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area; however, with our WWW presence and some of the features we are implementing, we expect AFFIRM to provide a viable professional association opportunity to federal IT professionals across the country."

Among the key features being implemented on-line are AFFIRM seminar program registration, membership registration, AFFIRMation newsletter publication, and coordination of AFFIRM's Emerging Issues Forum. The Emerging Issues Forum expects to benefit from the use of web technology as it seeks to create and sustain a debate on emerging federal IT issues through two-way connectivity to a widely-dispersed group of IT professionals. AFFIRM will test this new communication platform as we develop a new Merging Issues Forum paper on the subject of the federal CIO.

For more information on AFFIRMs WWW site or our new federal CIO study, access AFFIRM's web site at www.fedcenter.com/affirm, or send an E-mail to affirm.info@epamail.epa.gov.



February/March Seminar Recaps
February Seminar

Dr. Mark Boster, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for IRM, Department of Justice (DOJ), was the speaker for our February luncheon. Dr. Boster outlined four principal goals for DOJ-IRM which overlap IRM across the government. First, build a customer-focused, quality IRM program at the agency level so internal management will respect and cooperate with its goals. Such a program must reflect the current IRM culture! Next, Dr. Boster noted that an IRM program should reflect a goal of becoming a Technological Leader for within an agency's circle of influence; and that the IRM organization should act as a facilitator among various organizations within its agency. Finally, agency data centers should provide premiere mainframe data processing services to internal and external customers.

Dr. Boster sees five major challenges in meeting these goals. First, an adjustment to the political climate, a climate where budget cuts and downsizing are the norm, is necessary. More dependency on COTS, less policy, more visionary leadership and an incremental approach to systems acquisition will help meet this challenge. Second, is the challenge of dealing with more demanding and IT-aware customers, followed by the necessity to attract and retain a better technical staff within the present downsizing environment. The fourth challenge noted is closely related to the first - we must adjust to changes in IT-oriented Legislation (e.g., the Cohen Bill and FASA). The fifth major challenge noted by Dr. Boster relates to establishment and maintenance of a strong IT security program in a time of limited financial and human resources.

In conclusion, Dr. Boster gave us his "Boster's Rules of Survival." They are to remember:

Bureaucrat is not a 4-letter word.
Timing is everything - take advantage of opportunities!
You cannot just manage a program, you must aggressively manage change.
Keep your eyes on the goal(s), but measure progress incrementally.
Think outside the box! Just say "NO" to traditional solutions.
Re-engineer!
Good management is GOOD GOVERNMENT!

March Seminar
A breakfast seminar, held March 21, at the Marriott Crystal Gateway, was well attended by Federal and local IRM managers. The program included a panel of key Federal and industry IRM managers who discussed the critical issues facing Federal IT executives through the rest of the decade and into the millennium. This program was the first of its type presented jointly by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), the Association For Federal Information Resource Managers (AFFIRM), and the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) and, judging by the number attending, was a huge success.

The program included a brief monthly business meeting and a panel discussion of the issues noted in the sixth annual ITAA survey of senior IRM officials, issued in October, 1995 in a paper entitled, Winds of Change. Mr. Hank Steininger, Grant Thornton LLP Partner-in-Charge for Federal Government Consulting, started the presentation portion of the program by summarizing the findings in Winds of Change. Then there was a lively panel discussion of these issues among three current Federal IRM executives: Mr. Joseph Leo, Deputy Administrator, USDA; Mr. Kevin Carroll, Acquisition Manager, Department of Defense; and Ms. Gloria Parker, IRM Director for the Department of Education. The panel centered on the belief of the IRM officials surveyed that managing information technology in a refocused and downsized federal government would affect the IRM function in several critical areas, most notably in the areas of human resources, procurement and management reform, and technology directions and management. Dr. Phil
Kiviat of Sterling Systems moderated this discussion and enhanced it through probing questions and a touch of wit. Many attendees stayed after the formal program ended to meet the panelists and follow up with more questions or to further discuss the issues raised.



AFFIRM Sponsors FOSE Breakfast
AFFIRM held its Second Annual IRM Breakfast at FOSE on Wednesday, April 3, at the Washington Convention Center. This event was hosted by the Compaq Computer Corporation this year and included breakfast, a program which ran throughout breakfast, and a FOSE keynote presentation by General Colin Powell, USA (Ret) entitled From Desert Storm to the End of the Cold War and Beyond. This program was the official FOSE kick-off this year and, for the IRM managers who attended, it was an excellent start!

During the AFFIRM Breakfast, senior IRM executives discussed the role of the federal CIO under the new Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 (ITMRA). The Act was discussed in sections. First, Christopher Hoenig, the Director for the IRM Policies and Issues Group, Accounting and Information Management Division of the General Accounting Office, discussed the underlying problems that led Congress to pass the ITMRA. Then Paul Brubaker, Deputy Staff Director of the Senate's Subcommittee on Government Affairs and the District of Columbia, discussed the Congressional intent for the Act and its special provisions. Both men responded to audience comments and questions during each of their presentations.

During the breakfast, the audience was asked to complete a questionnaire designed to provide a baseline representation of their understanding of the relative importance of issues which AFFIRM defines as critical to ITMRA'S successful implementation. The results were tabulated electronically and then, during the discussion following the initial presentations, compared to the expert panel member's responses to the same questionnaire. Not surprising, the results of the breakfast survey indicated some notable differences between the "expert" panel and the audience's opinions about implementation of the CIO position.

The breakfast program ended with a good discussion of the CIO issues and survey results. The discussion was led by a panel of expert senior IT managers from both the public and private sector. The panel included:

• Renny DiPentima, Vice President and CIO, SRA;
• Marv Gordon, Director, Government Relations, Northrop Grumman;
• Gloria Parker, Director, Information Resources Group, Department of Education;
• Al Pesachowitz, Acting CIO for the Environmental Protection Agency; and
• Frank Quagliata, Program Manager, Ogden Professional Services.

The breakfast discussion raised additional ITMRA issues for consideration by our Emerging Issues Forum; we received CIO-related data from a wide variety of IT managers for use in development of our next white paper which will focus on the CIO's position and role under the ITMRA; and the keynote presentation by General Powell was inspiring. All-in-all, attendees agreed that the function was an all-around success!



Financial Issues
AFFIRM's financial report for February, 1996:

Income $22,070.00

Expenses $17,075.00

Net Assets $ 9,097.69

A detailed Treasurer's Report is available from Chris Folger at (703) 847-2709 or via Internet E-Mail address folgerc@federal.unisys.com.



Sustaining Partner Appreciation Event
A June reception is planned to show AFFIRM's appreciation of our 1995-1996 Sustaining Partners, organizations contributing at least $1,000 to AFFIRM during the fiscal year. This event will also celebrate issue of our much-anticipated Emerging Issues Forum White Paper on the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the federal government. The research for this paper included input from public and private sector sources, including CIOs in both areas. Acknowledgment of our Sustaining Partners and the issuance of an AFFIRM White Paper are well suited for mutual recognition since the support generated under AFFIRM's Corporate Sponsorship Program is primarily used to fund efforts to analyze emerging IRM/IT issues, an AFFIRM key chartered objective.

Participation in this event, scheduled to take place June 6 at George Washington University's Marvin Center, is by invitation only and limited to two representatives from each Sustaining Partner organization, federal and industry IRM leaders who participated in the CIO study, and past speakers from AFFIRM's luncheon seminars.



IRMA International Conference Scheduled
WHERE: Washington, DC
WHEN: May 20-22, 1996
COST: $300 (depending on membership status)
POC: Stan Polinsky - (202) 366-9711
spolinsky@postmaster2.dot.gov

The IRM Association's (IRMA) International Conference is planned for May 20 - 22, 1996, in Washington, DC. This year's conference includes 50 seminars/presentations on a variety of IRM/IT issues. The IRM in Government Track includes:

• Managing CIO performance expectations;
• Managing technology and processes in an emergency response environment;
• Innovative DoD concepts to make software management more effective;
• Re-engineering methods, tools, and techniques in the DoD; and
• Improving mission performance through strategic management bench marking.

Other tracks include the latest research/trends (e.g., database, telecommunications, multi-media, CAD software engineering, and technology education) presented by leaders in the academic community.

We expect the conference's international flavor to provide some interesting perspectives from other countries (e.g., Canada, Pakistan, and the Netherlands).

Please Call Stan Polinsky For Information And A Registration Package!


Sustaining Partners


ANSTEC, Inc.

Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc.

CDSI

DynCorp

FedCenter

Grant Thornton LLP

Lotus Development Corporation

MCI Government Markets

Ogden Professional Services

SAIC

Software AGFederal Systems, Inc.

Systems Integration Group, Inc.

Seminar Sponsors

American Management Systems

General Sciences Corporation

IBM

Marasco Newton Group

SAIC

UNISYS