Organizing for America | John Weiler's Blog

John Weiler's Blog

Our Government's ability to serve its community, win the cyberspace war, and stay ahead of our enemies is dependent on its ability to effectively and efficiently leverage the innovations of the market. This capability has been greatly hampered by an acquisition process that has not been updated in 30 years, and controlled today by major system integrators who are hostile to the small innovative businesses. Many study groups and public private partnerships like the DAPA report, ECCWG, AF Science Advisory Board, Gansler Commission, Interop. Clearinghouse, and Defense Science board reports all point to a root cause of our problems. Unfixed, the cost to the tax payer runs $15Billion per year in failed Info Technology programs in DoD alone. Worse, the cycle time using these antiguated processes is a staggering 36 months. This failure is affecting the core missions of Homeland Security, Homeland Defense, Intelligence, Healthcare and other critical operations. The Interopability Clearinghouse (ICHNet.org), was chartered under the Clinton Adminstration to take on this challenge, and is providing a public/private partnership structure and transparenty collaboratory of like minded entities who put our nation's interest first over profits and self interest. A roadmap for IT Acquisition Reform has been drafted, supported by a Clearinghouse of innovative solutions and best practices. The time is now to act. We are ready to stand together to help overcome one of the greatest barriers facing our great nation. John Weiler 703 768 0400 john@ICHnet.org

IT Acquisition Reform

By John from Alexandria, VA - Dec 5th, 2008 at 2:23 pm EST

Most agencies struggle with getting through the IT Acquisition Process and fail over 80% of the time, costing the tax payer over $15Billion per year. These failures can be attributed to multiple root causes including;

- Antiguated Architecture & Acquisition Processes designed prior to the E-Commerce revolution, which disenfranchise both the user and the small innovative companies

- Organizational Conflicts of Interest within the support contractors supporting the architecture and acquisition process.

- Lack of congressional support for those few honest brokers who are overwelmed by the FFRDCs and Federal System Integrators special interests.

- Lack of incentives or performance metrics that would help motivate govt Program Managers to change their focus from compliance to capability delivery. When a program fails in todays world, the PM gets more funds and the program is re-baselined.

Worse, the integrators are experiencing record profits while the govt experience record program failures. The good news is that some of our most patriotic leaders who have challenged the status quo are making progress, including efforts within the OSD BTA, AF CIO, and DIA. As the US Govt Info Technology Budget approaches $100Billion per year, we have a great opporunity to restart the US innovation engine if the barriers to entry can be overcome.

Mail to a Friend | Link | Comments (0) | Report Objectionable Content

Posts

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.