In the Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP) of GSA, we have been working closely with Kshemendra Paul and industry partners through the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC), a non-profit, public/private partnership focused on IT in government. OGP’s strategic direction is to ensure that government-wide policies encourage agencies to develop and utilize the best, most cost effective management practices for the conduct of their specific programs, and information technology is one of the areas that our policymaking authority covers.

Together, we have identified a gap in our knowledge of how to integrate standards into the acquisition process to better provide capabilities, such as data correlation. To address this, we are working with ACT-IAC to write a white paper on the topic that should help establish the best practices for standards-based acquisition that are essential for deploying interoperable technology solutions.

The intent of this whitepaper is to provide the perspective of the industry partners and vendors who work with the federal government on standards-based activities. The whitepaper should also include recommendations with activities for what needs to be accomplished to close the standards gap as well as what the core set of technical standards should be. Finally, we also hope to better describe how the federal government can make existing acquisition processes more simplified and transparent.

Federal acquisition policies must facilitate and reward collaboration between the government and industry that results in collective development of tools and technologies. By closing this standard gap and then aligning our acquisition requirements across the federal government, we can:

• Leverage existing capabilities that the federal government already possesses;
• Maximize our purchasing power in acquiring new products;
• Better manage the risk inherent in integrating common solutions throughout the federal government; and
• Make purchasing decisions that are responsive to new and evolving standards.

We encourage you to consider get involved in this effort. ACT-IAC is seeking responses to this survey from the public through May 4, 2012 at 5 p.m. If you have any questions, please contact Jonathan D. Addelston, Co-Chair, Information Sharing Committee of the Collaboration and Transformation Shared Interest Group, ACT-IAC.

-  Kathleen Turco, Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Government-wide Policy

(Kathleen also serves on the Executive Board of the American Council for Technology)

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