NEW FITARA REPORT CARDS SHOW WHERE CONTRACTORS COULD HELP

The Department of Defense needs help in managing its IT portfolio and can improve its transparency and risk management.  NASA, Transportation, and Treasury also need help in that area.  These are among the findings of the recently-published 10th FITARA report card (https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/fitara-Scorecard-10-USAID-corrected.pdf).  Once viewed unevenly across the federal IT community, FITARA compliance is now mandated by OMB and is the subject of regular Congressional oversight.  Contractors probably know that, as a result, FITARA comes up a lot more in business and agency management discussions than was once the caseWhile federal agencies are making overall progress in meeting their FITARA requirements, there are still specific areas where companies can help.  One such area is “Agency CIO Authority Enhancements”.  DOD, DHS, and NASA are three agencies that received an “F” in that category, indicating that they might be open to help from contractors that can provide a strategic analysis of the CIO’s role and how it is integrated into overall agency management.  To put it mildly, not all CIO designations carry the same weight.  Where are agencies doing well?  Both GSA and USAID received an overall “A” grade.  All agencies except OPM received an “A” grade for their management of software licensing.  Still, there is plenty of intelligence to be gathered from the latest report card on where agencies fall short in IT management and, by extension, where contractors might be able to find opportunities.