IT modernization continues to be a guiding light for the federal government, but long-standing issues still complicate agencies’ plans, in addition to urgent new issues. Continuing cloud migration and management, more potent cybersecurity and supply chain risks, budgeting, as well as evolving remote work environments add up to an increasingly complex environment for agencies looking to modernize their IT at scale.Adapting to those challe...

The COVID pandemic spurred agencies to move their data and applications to the cloud quicker than many had planned to make it more accessible for a remote workforce and to protect it from intensifying cyberattacks. More than a year into the new normal world of remote work, agencies are evaluating the best ways to secure the hybrid and multi clouds and their data troves to make sure it can meet the increased challenges. In May 2020, the Biden A...

In June 2021, the federal government was optimistic about returning to offices in the summer and began planning for reentry with new guidelines. The Delta variant surge paused those plans and caused a reexamination of the future work plans. Learn how agencies are adjusting to host of new and continuing challenges: a long term remote workforce, the technology and security challenges they face, how they are changing the way they manage the workf...

With aging IT infrastructure, outdated job classification system and a greying government workforce, agency executive and human capital officers face a trifecta of challenges in the years ahead. Soaring demand for cybersecurity experts and data scientists are just two examples of the newer professional specialists that the government is struggling to hire. With the rise of vaccinated workers, questions have arisen about the reopening of federa...

The Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation (CDM) program has matured and broadened its offerings and full deployment of agency dashboards is on the horizon. In the last year, however, ominous high profile breaches in commercial and critical infrastructure networks have highlighted the continued importance of strong cybersecurity across federal networks. In the wake of the pandemic, federal IT managers are faced with an increasingly complex cyber...

Time and time again, data breaches demonstrate the pitfalls of relying on detection to identify malicious activities taking place on the network, rather than prevention of the threat in the first place. The emphasis—post event—has been what the agency did wrong. But, what if we took a different approach that allowed agencies to share what has been working for them? Both before and after. Some tips and lessons from folks who have be...

In just a few short years, Robotic Process Automation has gone from a few scattered pilot projects to an essential tool deployed by dozens of agencies. Hundreds of thousands of staff-hours have been saved, and organizations are increasingly looking to leverage artificial intelligence to automate more-complicated workflows. Automation at scale comes with challenges, however -- from credential management to siloed systems to ensuring that outdat...

Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) and Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) have gained increased attention recently as several high profile incidents compromised a number of federal systems. In the wake of those incidents, The White House, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Institute for Standards and Technology have all stepped in to provide new guidance and tools for agencies to improve the...

Although it got an encouraging $1 billion funding shot in the arm from the American Rescue Plan Act in early 2020, the effort to modernize and transform an aging infrastructure remains a complicated task that takes coordination, executive buy-in and detailed security and data strategies to make it work. The $1 billion set aside for the Technology Modernization Fund in the ARP smooths some modernization budgeting issues for agencies, which have...

Federal agencies must shift fully to electronic records management by December 2022, when the National Archives and Records Administration will stop accepting new paper records. Successfully making that transition entails far more than simply digitizing existing documents. Meeting the goals set by M-19-21 demands changes to current business processes, dramatically different approaches to content classification, new systems that are digital thr...