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67–128 PDF 2012

S. Hrg. 112–259 

EXAMINING THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN FOR 

ELIMINATING WASTEFUL SPENDING IN 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT 

INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 12, 2011 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

JOYCE WARD, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT 

INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN KILVINGTON, Staff Director 

WILLIAM WRIGHT, Minority Staff Director 

DEIRDRE G. ARMSTRONG, Chief Clerk 

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(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 1 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 41 

Senator Brown .................................................................................................. 44 

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011 

Hon. Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer, Administrator for 

Electronic Government and Information Technology, Office of Management 

and Budget ........................................................................................................... 4 

David McClure, Associate Administrator, Office of Citizens Services and Innovative Technologies, U.S. General Services Administration ............................. 6 

David A. Powner, Director of Information Technology Management Issues, 

U.S. Government Accountability Office .............................................................. 8 

Stephen W.T. O’Keeffe, Founder, MeriTalk .......................................................... 24 

Rishi Sood, Vice President, Government Vertical Industries, Gartner, Inc. ...... 26 

Alfred Grasso, President and Chief Executive Officer, The MITRE Corporation ........................................................................................................................ 29

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Grasso, Alfred: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 98 

Kundra, Hon. Vivek: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

McClure, David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

O’Keeffe, Stephen W.T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 80 

Powner, David A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 62 

Sood, Rishi: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 26 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 93 

APPENDIX 

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Mr. Kundra ....................................................................................................... 107 

Mr. Powner ........................................................................................................ 111 

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(1) 

EXAMINING THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN 

FOR ELIMINATING WASTEFUL SPENDING 

IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT,

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES,

AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:35 a.m., in 

room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. 

Carper, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper and Brown. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. The hearing will come to order. Welcome one 

and all, especially to our witnesses today. Thank you for your preparation. Thank you for your presence. We look forward to your testimony and the opportunity to have a good conversation. 

We will be joined by some of our colleagues as we get into today’s 

hearing, but sort of as a precursor to today’s hearing, I was driving 

in to the train station this morning and flipping back and forth between radio stations, and I happened to come across a song where 

the Rolling Stones were singing, ‘‘Hey, You, Get Off Of My Cloud.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

How appropriate. We usually do not have theme songs for our 

hearings, but if we did, that actually might work. We actually want 

to get people on the cloud, as I understand it, and hopefully when 

we leave here today I will understand better what all that is about. 

But our hearing today will examine the President’s plan to fundamentally transform the management of our Federal information 

technology (IT) assets. The message of the plan is clear: We need 

to cut what we cannot afford and nurture an environment in which 

innovative and more cost effective technologies can be employed 

throughout our government. 

As I have said time and again in this room and other places, we 

need to look in every nook and cranny of our Federal Government—domestic, defense, entitlements, tax expenditures—and ask 

this question: Is it possible to get better results for less money? Or 

is it possible to get better results for the same amount of money? 

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2 

The hard truth is that many programs’ funding levels will need 

to be reduced. Even some of the most popular and necessary programs out there will likely be asked to do more with less or more 

for the same amount of many. 

Many Americans believe that those of us here in Washington are 

not capable of doing the hard work we were hired to do, and that 

is, to effectively manage the tax dollars they entrust us with. They 

look at the spending decisions that we have made in recent years 

and question whether the culture here is broken. They question 

whether we are capable of making the kind of tough decisions that 

they and their families make with their own budgets. And I do not 

blame them for being skeptical. 

I am afraid that their skepticism has proved well founded when 

you look at the kind of avoidable management failures that we 

have incurred in Federal information technology over the past decade or so. The past mismanagement of our Nation’s $80 billion annual Federal information technology is not only intolerable, it is 

unsustainable. 

Late last year, then the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) Director Peter Orszag said that fixing the broken management of our Federal Government’s information technology was— 

and this is a quote—‘‘the single most important step we can take 

in creating a more efficient and productive government.’’ 

I am going to say that again, ‘‘the single most important step we 

can take in creating a more efficient and productive government.’’ 

Based on the information that OMB has released as a part of its 

review, I believe he may be correct. The failures of information 

technology management in the Federal Government have in some 

cases been spectacular. For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in January of this year that those running the National Archives electronic records investment had not 

been able to identify potential costs and schedule problems early 

and, as a result, failed to take any action to address them. 

GAO estimates that because of these failures in one troubled 

project—one troubled project—taxpayers will lose somewhere between $205 million and $405 million. That is real money where I 

come from. 

Today we will look at the President’s 25-point plan to turn this 

ship around. The goals are ambitious, and so are the timelines. 

That is a good thing. 

Under the direction of our first Federal Chief Information Officer 

(CIO), Vivek Kundra, the plan is to be fully implemented within 18 

months of its introduction. That is May 2012, if you are keeping 

score at home. But the various goals are broken down into 6-, 12- 

, and 18-month increments. Today I am particularly interested in 

hearing how we are progressing toward those 6-month goals. 

The President’s plan centers around three main initiatives: 

First, the plan fosters a cultural shift aimed at making the management and implementation of large Federal IT projects more effective and more efficient; 

Second, the plan pushes the Federal Government to adopt cheaper, better, and faster technologies; 

And, third, the plan demands that we shed or consolidate the duplicative and wasteful Federal data centers in our inventory. 

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3 

The plan is a positive first step in tackling the institutional and 

systemic problems that have plagued Federal information technology management for years. It may not be perfect, but the President and Mr. Kundra should be commended for taking on this challenge, and I commend you today. 

We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, about how 

we are progressing toward these goals, how agencies are responding, and what those of us here in Congress can do to help make 

this a successful venture. 

Today I am also happy to say that my colleagues, as they come 

along, will be asking their questions, and if they really want to give 

a statement, we will let them, but my guess is they will probably 

just want to get right into the flow with questions and answers. 

But my colleagues Scott Brown, Senator Joe Lieberman, and 

Senator Collins have joined me in introducing legislation called 

‘‘The Information Technology Investment Management Act of 

2011.’’ This legislation calls for greater transparency when it comes 

to the cost and performance of our Nation’s information technology 

investments so that American taxpayers can see how their money 

is being spent. 

It also demands that agencies and the Office of Management and 

Budget be held accountable for a project’s failure and work either 

to fix them or end them. The time for lazy or wasteful management 

of these expensive investments is over. We are going to demand 

that projects be on time, on budget, and deliver on their promises. 

If they do not, we are going to bring them to a halt. We are going 

to end the pattern of throwing good money after bad. 

I hope that our witnesses will include in their testimony today 

some brief thoughts and comments about our legislation. We always welcome constructive criticism. 

And with that said, I want to introduce just very briefly the first 

panel of witnesses. A couple of you have been before us more times 

than you want to remember. If we had to pay David Powner for 

every time he has been before us, the budget deficit would be a lot 

bigger, so we appreciate especially your being here. 

Our first witness today is Vivek Kundra, who serves as our Nation’s first Federal Chief Information Officer. Mr. Kundra is responsible for directing the policy and strategic planning of Federal 

information technology investments as well as for oversight of Federal technology spending. Previously, Mr. Kundra worked as Chief 

Technology Officer for the District of Columbia and as Assistant 

Secretary of Commerce in Virginia under Governor Tim Kaine. 

Our next witness is David McClure—Mr. McClure, good to see 

you—who is the Associate Administrator in the Office of Citizen 

Services and Innovative Technologies for the U.S. General Services 

Administration (GSA). Mr. McClure works to advance GSA’s responsibilities in serving the American people through open and 

transparent government initiatives and by identifying new technologies to improve government operations and service delivery. 

Our final witness for this panel is Mr. David Powner, who is the 

Director of IT Management Issues in the U.S. Government Accountability Office. As Director, Mr. Powner is in charge of GAO’s 

analysis of Federal IT investments, health IT, and cybersecurity 

initiatives. Again, we welcome you. 

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4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Kundra appears in the appendix on page 47. 

I am going to recognize Mr. Kundra to proceed first, and you are 

welcome to summarize your testimony. All of it will be made part 

of the record, and then once the three of you have concluded, we 

will start with some questions. Again, welcome. Thank you so 

much. And thank you for your leadership. 

STATEMENT OF VIVEK KUNDRA,1 FEDERAL CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER AND ADMINISTRATOR FOR ELECTRONIC 

GOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE 

OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

Mr. KUNDRA. Good morning, Chairman Carper and Members of 

the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on our 

efforts to eliminate wasteful information technology. 

Effective management of IT is essential in serving the American 

people, protecting our national security interests, and keeping 

America competitive in the global economy. That is why for the 

past 26 months we have focused on reforming Federal IT to crack 

down on wasteful spending and boost performance. 

Through relentless oversight, we have delivered $3 billion in life 

cycle cost reductions. We are eliminating duplicative infrastructure 

and have saved millions of dollars through game-changing technologies and approaches such as cloud computing. 

On December 9, 2010, we published the ‘‘25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management,’’ our blueprint to address the structural barriers that get in the way of consistent execution. We have segmented the reforms into 6-month increments 

with concrete deliverables. I would like to highlight our progress 

over the past 124 days in each of the five key reform areas. 

First, we are applying light technologies and shared solutions to 

allow agencies to optimize spending and invest in their missioncritical needs rather than duplicative infrastructure. 

Since 1998, the Federal Government has seen the number of 

data centers grow from 432 to more than 2,000. To reverse this 

unsustainable growth, we are actively shutting down 800 data centers by 2015. Additionally, we have shifted to a Cloud First policy 

that allows agencies to pay only for the resources that they are actually using. 

Second, we are strengthening program management because no 

matter how effective our technologies and policies, the success of 

our most complicated, high-profile, and expensive programs rests 

on the shoulders of effective program managers. Yet too often these 

programs are managed by individuals randomly pulled across the 

government who lack the training to successfully deliver. That is 

why we have created the IT Program Manager Career Series to attract the best talent and to make sure that we are cultivating the 

top performers. 

We have also seen universities like George Mason University 

(GMU) and the National Defense University (NDU) stand up programs that focus on case studies so we do not repeat historical failures. 

Third, we are aligning the budget and acquisition process with 

the technology cycle to make sure that programs are not out of date 

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5 

the moment that they are launched. The budget process forces 

agencies to specify in great detail what they are going to be building out 24 months before they can even start a project. The acquisition process routinely adds another 12 to 18 months. We have analyzed funding models across the Federal Government to identify 

the necessary changes to the legal framework for IT funding that 

enables successful modular development and to help contain the 

rise in infrastructure costs. We look forward to working with Congress to consolidate commodity IT funding under agency CIOs and 

to develop budget models that align with modular development. 

Fourth, we are strengthening governance and improving accountability because for too long we have witnessed runaway projects 

that waste billions of dollars that are years behind schedule. That 

is why we have scaled the same model that reduced project life 

cycle costs by $3 billion and turned it around poorly performing 

projects. Already 129 agency employees have been trained and 23 

agencies have implemented the TechStat model to tap into the ingenuity of the American people and the collective talent of State 

and local governments. We have open-sourced the very software 

code that the IT Dashboard was built upon and the TechStat 

model. Thirty-eight States, including Delaware and Massachusetts, 

and multiple countries have reached out to express interest in 

adopting these tools to improve transparency and accountability. 

And, fifth, we are increasing engagement with the industry to 

demystify the procurement process and dispel common misconceptions regarding the acquisition regulations. We debunk the top 10 

myths in IT procurement, and we are building a pre-Request for 

Proposal (RFP) platform to help overcome the ties that may occur 

between agencies and certain vendors. The platform will give agencies access to the most innovative solutions and provide a small 

business the same opportunities that an industry titan has. 

Over the past 124 days, we have focused on execution rather 

than just policy development. We must continue to buildupon the 

progress to date and scaled practices that we know work to make 

Federal IT perform at the level the American people expect. The 

Federal Government must be able to provision services more like 

a nimble startup and leverage smaller technologies that require 

lower capital outlays. 

I would like to thank the Members of this Subcommittee and 

their staff for putting IT management front and center and helping 

transform the landscape of Federal IT. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to any 

questions you may have. 

Senator CARPER. Great. Thank you for that testimony and for the 

work that it represents. Thanks so much. Mr. McClure, welcome. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. McClure appears in the appendix on page 53. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID MCCLURE,1 ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF CITIZEN SERVICES AND INNOVATIVE 

TECHNOLOGIES, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. MCCLURE. Good morning, Chairman Carper and Senator 

Brown. Let me introduce myself. I am Dave McClure from the 

GSA. I would like to talk about the GSA role in the IT reform 

agenda this morning. 

I really want to summarize three main points that I make in my 

written statement. 

Point No. 1 is that the 25-point IT reform plan and the Federal 

Cloud Computing Strategy issued by Vivek are very constructive, 

and they are sorely needed steps forward in improving the way IT 

is acquired and managed. GSA’s role in this agenda is very clear. 

We focus on shared, lightweight technologies, and simplifying the 

provisioning of IT services on demand so that we can accelerate 

agencies’ access to modern technology, get solutions in the hands 

of users faster, and lower costs. 

Cloud computing is at the forefront of these innovative technologies today. As Vivek has noted, it offers compelling advantages 

when, like any other technology implementation, it is done well. 

Cloud computing is already here in the Federal Government, and 

it is an inevitable trend from a technology marketplace perspective. 

Many agencies have started implementing cloud solutions and 

found significant savings. We have documented many on our public 

web page, Info.Apps.gov. 

The return on investment has been lower IT operating costs, improved operational performance, better service delivery, and increased agility in provisioning changes to computing needs. 

Point No. 2, GSA plays a strong governmentwide leadership in 

supporting the adoption of cloud computing in the Federal Government. The Federal Cloud or Project Management Office (PMO), is 

housed in my office at GSA, and we have the lead in facilitating 

new innovative cloud computing procurement options, ensuring effective cloud security and standards are in place, and identifying 

potential multi-agency or governmentwide use of cloud computing 

solutions. 

Our cloud computing PMO is active, engaging, and productive. 

My written statement outlines six cloud-related activities. I just 

want to focus on three of them briefly. 

Let us start with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is being established to provide a standard security approach for assessing and authorizing cloud computing services and products. Currently this process in the government is expensive, it is time-consuming, it is a heavy paper-driven 

process exercised inconsistently across the government. An average 

Assessing and Authorizing (A&A) costs up to $180,000 and requires 

up to 6 months to complete. FedRAMP will allow joint authorizations and increased use of continuous security monitoring services 

for government and commercial cloud computing systems. 

Because we can achieve a more consistent security baseline and 

a common interpretation, we can leverage the work of one agency 

for another, or as we say, approve once and use often. This should 

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7 

help reduce cost, it should enable rapid acquisitions, and it should 

reduce the overall effort of the government in this area. 

I might add that we have developed this with broad consensus 

in the government, involving that National Standards and Technology (NIST), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the 

Department of Defense (DOD), the National Security Agency 

(NSA), and various commercial industry consortia. 

Another important governmentwide initiative is infrastructure as 

a service. Each year the government spends tens of thousands and 

millions of dollars on IT products and services, heavy focus on 

maintaining the current computing infrastructure needs and demands. We have established a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) 

with 12 companies, many with multiple partners who offer storage, 

computing power, and Web site hosting as commodities. The benefits include commodity type pricing for services, allowing customer 

to easily compare prices across vendors. It also offers standardized 

technical and security requirements that companies are required to 

meet across the entire government. 

The third area is cloud-based e-mail. We chose to tackle perhaps 

one of the most ubiquitous business technologies in use by all Federal agencies: e-mail. Using a governmentwide working group, we 

again took a collaborative approach to building a procurement vehicle. Once it is released and concluded, services will be offered to 

Federal customers via a Blanket Purchase Agreement. I think it 

will accommodate a range of robust, feature-rich e-mail services in 

public, private, and highly secured clouds. 

So my final point is this: GSA is also walking the talk. A lot of 

what we are doing internally within GSA is also very robust in the 

cloud space. We are putting in one of the first cloud-based e-mail 

systems in the government. We expect a savings of over $15 million 

in 5 years. We are reducing our own data centers from 15 to 3 by 

2015. We estimate a $2 million annual reduction in data center 

costs as a result. And we host perhaps some of the most visible 

Web sites, public Web sites in government, including USA.gov, 

which is the Nation’s portal or front door into the Federal Government, as well as Data.gov, which is one of the first public-facing 

government Web sites to be successfully deployed in a cloud environment. 

We also host a lot of open-source sharable code solutions that 

lower the cost and help implementations in areas like Challenge.gov, where challenges and contests are being run by Federal 

agencies. 

So I hope this offers you a brief flavor of what we are doing at 

GSA to improve the IT outcomes in the government. Again, thanks 

for having me here for testifying. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. McClure, thank you for testifying. 

Mr. Powner, welcome. Thank you. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Powner appears in the appendix on page 62. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID POWNER,1 DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. POWNER. Chairman Carper, Senator Brown, we appreciate 

the opportunity to testify this morning on IT acquisitions. Chairman Carper, I would like to thank you for your oversight of Federal 

IT acquisitions. Your many hearings highlighting the wasteful 

spending in this area has led to many improvements in Federal 

agencies and at the Office of Management and Budget. 

Senator CARPER. Very nice of you to say that. Thanks very much 

for being a big part of that. 

Mr. POWNER. OMB plays a key role in this oversight process. In 

fact, OMB has been required by the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 to 

track, analyze, and report to the Congress on IT expenditures, 

which now total almost $80 billion. 

To help carry out this role, OMB established several oversight 

mechanisms, including lists of troubled projects, starting in 2003, 

that clearly were not as useful or accurate enough to perform the 

appropriate level of oversight. Under Vivek Kundra’s leadership, 

OMB has improved its oversight of and management of IT acquisitions by: one, creating the IT Dashboard; two, using this information on the Dashboard to hold agencies and CIOs accountable; and, 

three, introducing comprehensive IT reform. I would like to highlight each of these efforts and what additional actions are needed. 

First, the Dashboard. In June 2009, OMB deployed a public Web 

site, known as the IT Dashboard, to improve the transparency and 

oversight of approximately 800 major Federal investments totaling 

about $40 billion. The Dashboard presents information on costs and 

schedule and a CIO assessment, among others. Today, the Dashboard shows that nearly 40 percent of the 800 investments are in 

need of management attention due to their red or yellow status. 

More simply put, this equates to over 300 investments totaling $20 

billion that are at risk. 

I would like to repeat those numbers. We have 300 investments totaling $20 billion that are at risk. 

In addition to identifying troubled IT projects, the Dashboard is 

an excellent tool to identify duplicative investments, which could 

result in significant savings. We have ongoing work for this Subcommittee looking at this duplicative spending. 

Despite the improved transparency, data reliability remains an 

issue, as our work has shown that Dashboard information is not always accurate and consistent with agency records. OMB and agencies acknowledge this and have a number of activities under way 

to improve the Dashboard and the accuracy of what is being reported. 

OMB has also improved the management of IT investments 

needing attention by holding TechStat meetings. These meetings 

started in January 2010 and are led by Mr. Kundra and agency 

leadership. Well over 50 of these meetings have been held, and the 

results are impressive. Four projects have been canceled and 11 restructured. OMB has claimed that this has resulted in a $3 billion 

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9 

ority projects that have undergone extensive review, which resulted 

in corrective action plans. 

One of the high-priority projects is the National Archives electronic records acquisition that you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. Our 

work for this Subcommittee has highlighted the mismanagement 

and major cost and schedule issues associated with this acquisition. 

It is one of the projects that OMB is in the process of restructuring. 

Although OMB has had significant results with its TechStat meetings and its high-priority projects, many more projects are in need 

of OMB and agency oversight. 

In addition to the Dashboard and TechStat sessions, OMB issued 

a comprehensive IT reform plan that includes replicating these 

TechStat sessions throughout the government to improve governance and to strengthen program management. Many of the reform 

initiatives are consistent with your many years of oversight in this 

arena and our body of work on IT acquisition. And to its credit, 

OMB has issued aggressive milestones that span the next 18 

months. Now the challenge lies in implementation. 

In summary, OMB’s efforts to improve the transparency of the 

IT Dashboard, to improve IT acquisition execution through its 

TechStat sessions, and its IT reform initiatives are encouraging. 

But the accuracy of the Dashboard information needs to greatly improve. Even more focus needs to be put on the $20 billion at risk, 

and the major IT reform initiatives now need to be implemented. 

I would like to conclude by commending your leadership, as well 

as Mr. Kundra’s in this area, Mr. Chairman, and I am pleased to 

answer any questions you have. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Powner, thank you so much, and thanks 

again for being a big partner with us in these efforts. 

Senator Brown has another hearing that is going on, and he is 

going to be coming in and out. But I just want to recognize him 

for any comments that he wants to make, and he can go right into 

questions whenever he is ready. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to stay 

as long as I can. I enjoy this very much, and I appreciate you pushing forward on this. 

I have a statement that I am just going to submit for the record. 

Senator CARPER. Without objection. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

I might as well start. Mr. Kundra, according to your testimony, 

your high-priority IT project and financial system reviews have led 

to over $3 billion in life cycle cost reductions. How many investments were actually reviewed? 

Mr. KUNDRA. We actually overall looked at over 50 investments. 

Senator BROWN. Five-zero? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Fifty, yes. So these 50 investments, and one of the 

things we focused on was the most troubled investments out of the 

IT portfolio. And the reason we introduced the IT reform plan, the 

25-point plan, was to actually now multiply the same processes 

across every single department and agency within the U.S. Government because the challenges at the end of the day, despite OMB’s 

oversight capabilities, what we want to do is we want to prevent 

these investments from getting to the point where they are years 

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10 

behind schedule or hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. And 

that is what we are focused on. 

Senator BROWN. By then isn’t the technology obsolete in many 

instances? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Absolutely. The way that the acquisition processes 

actually work right now and the budgeting process, unfortunately 

we plan out years in advance and end up locking a specific technology. And by the time you actually implement some of these technologies, they are way out of date. 

Senator BROWN. I know in New York City, for example, they 

hired a company, VMware, to come in and actually go and review 

all their IT specifications because there were so many individual 

fiefdoms and they were not connected. They were not efficient. 

They were wasting money. They have apparently saved a tremendous amount of money through, obviously, the cloud technology and 

that whole new way of doing things. 

Out of the 50 that you did—how many actually are there total 

in terms of the actual investments? You said you looked at—how 

many actually are there? What is the big picture? 

Mr. KUNDRA. So where we need attention, as Dave Powner pointed out, is about 300 or so investments, and what we are trying to 

do now is to scale the same exact model we used to turn around 

or terminate these poorly performing investments. So the process 

we used was coupling the IT Dashboard where we are shining light 

on what was going on with these investments with what we call 

our TechStat accountability sessions to really drill down on each of 

these investments to make sure that if, for example, you do not 

have a dedicated project manager, if you do not actually have a 

clearer understanding of what the business objectives or goals are, 

or you are in the process of implementing outdated technologies, 

these are huge investments that have a major effect on how agencies are actually being transformed. 

One of the problems we have seen throughout these sessions is 

that people are looking at these projects at IT projects. But at the 

end of the day, they are about transforming how an agency fundamentally operates. 

Senator BROWN. So when you are looking at the—when you say 

$3 billion is or may be saved in part, this is being done by canceling some projects, I am presuming. But how much did we already lose with what was already spent on those investments? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Well, so that is a little more difficult number to 

come up with. To give you an example, with financial systems what 

we did is we looked at the entire life cycle cost of financial systems 

across the Federal Government, and that was about $20 billion in 

life cycle costs. 

The Department of Defense, for example, had a project called Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS). It 

was their integrated human resource planning system. They spent 

12 years and approximately $1 billion, and we ended up killing 

that project. 

Unfortunately, what we do not want to do is be in a position 

where we are just killing IT projects because at the end of the day 

there is still a business need. They are not just implementing 

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11 

projects because they felt it was a fun thing to do. There is actually 

a business problem. 

So the four that we killed, the real victory in my mind is actually 

the projects, the 11-plus projects that we looked at where we descoped them. And what I mean by de-scoping is we said instead of 

trying to boil the ocean, where people have bought into this fallacy 

that these enterprise resource planning systems are going to balance your books, they are going to track your assets, they are going 

to make you coffee, that you have to actually break these projects 

down into 6-month increments. If within 6 months you cannot 

prove that you have delivered something of value to your customers, then you need to either halt that project or you need to 

fundamentally rethink it or terminate it. And what we are seeing 

with these large enterprise projects is that people are spending 

years, in some cases decades, implementing a project that is not 

working. 

Senator BROWN. So did we actually save $3 billion, or did we just 

not lose more money to cost overruns on these actual projects? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Well, it is a combination of both because where we 

de-scoped the projects in the cases of financial management systems like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we actually 

took that project down and cut it significantly lower. And also the 

way we were saving that money in terms of both cost avoidance 

and the original life cycle costs is that there are game-changing 

technologies, new technologies that have emerged since the project 

was originally conceived. 

Senator BROWN. It always seems like we are a couple of steps behind. It seems like the government is an easy mark: Hey, we have 

this new technology, go buy it. And then we invest billions of dollars in some instances, or at least hundreds of millions, and then 

by the time it actually gets through the process, it gets implemented, it gets up and running, and it is obsolete. Then we have 

to get the updates and upgrades, and it just seems like we are an 

easy mark. 

I am wondering, in the next 50 investments, is there the potential for significant cost savings in the future? Or were these initial 

reviews just kind of picking off the low-hanging fruit? 

Mr. KUNDRA. I think there are significant opportunities for cost 

savings, in the billions, and here is why. So to your point, one of 

the big problems we see is this huge gap between the public sector 

and the private sector, and the reason this gap exists is because 

the culture in government historically has been that the government must build its own infrastructure, it must own the software 

development. And one of the reasons we are shifting to the Cloud 

First policy essentially is to move away from this philosophy of 

asset ownership to service provisioning. 

So in the same way that a small startup company would go out 

there, and if they are standing up a business, they are not going 

to go out there and build their own e-mail system or their own accounting system. They are going to go to a company like Quicken 

Books and fire up an accounting system or go to Microsoft or 

Google or any of these other providers and fire up an e-mail system. 

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12 

What we need to do is government needs to operate much more 

like a nimble startup than it does today, where we are engaging 

in these multi-year, multi-billion-dollar IT projects. That is what 

we are doing with GSA, putting in place these governmentwide 

procurements that actually will allow us to provision the services. 

Senator BROWN. Just in closing, and then I will turn it back to 

the Chairman in Massachusetts we have amazing companies that 

deal with this stuff every day, and it is second nature. We have the 

technology leaders in the world. And we are in the government, 

and it is like we are sometimes in the Dark Ages. I am sure this 

is not the first time we have had a hearing on this stuff. It is my 

first experience on it. But I know you have been working on it for 

years. 

At what point do we actually start to realize these billions of savings, I mean, real dollars that can be used in other areas, especially now? 

So that was more of a statement than a question, but I would 

like to come back. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. 

Senator Brown and I hold a lot of hearings in here, and what we 

focus on is how do we get better results for less money. That is 

really what we do. That is our bumper sticker—how to get better 

results for less money. And when you think about IT projects, 

sometimes we do not really focus on what we are trying to do is 

get better service, better results for less money. 

Give us a couple of examples, and I do not care who leads off, 

but give us a couple of examples where you actually can say these 

are some projects where we actually got a whole lot better results 

for less money, or a little better results for—better service, maybe, 

for not a lot more money. Can you give us a couple good examples? 

Mr. MCCLURE. Yes, I would be happy to start. In my case, we 

have been one of the first to move into the cloud computing environment, for example, and I mentioned USA.gov, which is the public portal for the Federal Government. By moving it into a cloud 

environment, we are able to save an estimated $1.7 million a year 

in computing costs because we moved into a more agile computing 

environment. We were able to provision changes to that system in 

hours as opposed to months, which means I could change the Web 

site and its features very quickly. And, third, it allowed me to use 

people in a different way. Rather than monitoring and running the 

infrastructure that we owned, I actually could turn them over to 

doing more mission-based and I think more value-added types of 

services. 

So for us it was a cost savings, it was an agility to move faster, 

and I was able to free people up to do more value-added work. And 

I think that is a common occurrence across many of the implementations right now. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. Some other examples, please. 

Mr. KUNDRA. On something as simple as e-mail services, the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture (USDA), with 120,000 employees, and 

the General Services Administration (GSA), with 17,000 employees, 

moving e-mail over to the cloud, what they were able to save is 

over $40 million. Something as simple as a Web site, what the ReH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

13 

covery Board did is they saved $750,000 by just moving to the 

Amazon cloud. 

Health and Human Services (HHS), by looking at electronic 

health record grants, moving over to a sales force implementation, 

they cut their costs by 60 percent. 

So we are seeing huge savings, and it is not just in dollars. Part 

of what is happening is we keep building duplicative infrastructures, so the numbers you look at in terms of data centers, we went 

from 432 to more than 2,000, and part of the reason is because people have been so focused on building duplicative, redundant infrastructure rather than lifting up and saying how do we make sure 

that in the same way the American people, when they go and book 

a ticket, whether it is for a flight or a concert or making a reservation at a local restaurant, that experience is so much better than 

when they are dealing with the government. And the reason is because the government is so focused on the duplicative infrastructure, and we are trying to abstract all of that so we can get the 

government to focus actually on the customer experience rather 

than investing billions of dollars in this duplicative infrastructure. 

Senator CARPER. I have not counted the number of times that 

‘‘cloud’’ has been used in our testimony or our responses to questions, but there are a lot of people who are following the hearing 

today have no idea what you are talking about. Why don’t you just 

step back—actually somebody had it in their testimony, a little definition at the bottom of the page, what we are talking about, which 

I do not know if it would be all that helpful to too many people. 

Just make it real simple and easy for folks to understand. 

Mr. KUNDRA. Sure. So the most basic way to think about cloud 

computing is if you look at the progress that was made throughout 

this Nation, it used to be that every house had its own well and 

had its own electrical generation system. But as technology 

evolved, we ended up with an electrical grid, we ended up with a 

water distribution system. So now what happens is, when you are 

at home, whether you are plugging in a mixer or a TV, you consume the electricity that you are actually using rather than to have 

to pay for all that infrastructure. 

In the same way, cloud computing from a technology perspective, 

the simplest way to think of it is that the government is going to 

be able to pool its demand and actually dynamically allocate resources or use resources so that we are not paying for resources 

that we are actually not using. 

Senator CARPER. A friend of mine tried to explain it to me not 

long ago, and he said, ‘‘Do you have kids that are old enough to 

drive?’’ I said, ‘‘Yes, we have a boy 21 and one 22.’’ And he said, 

‘‘Are they away at college?’’ I said, ‘‘One is, and one is actually in 

another country.’’ He said, ‘‘Do they ever come home?’’ I said, ‘‘Well, 

they do.’’ And he said, ‘‘How many vehicles do you have?’’ I told 

him, and he said, ‘‘Do you need more vehicles when they come 

home?’’ And I said, ‘‘Yes, we do.’’ And he said, ‘‘What do you do, 

go out and buy a new vehicle so that when they come 2 or 3 weeks 

out of the year their car is there for them to use?’’ And I said, ‘‘No. 

We actually rent a car.’’ He said, ‘‘Well, that is kind of like what 

this is.’’ So that helps me understand it. 

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I want to try to draw an analogy here and use this analogy as 

a way to get to sort of get why do we have this problem. It has 

been pervasive throughout the Federal Government. We spend so 

much money for these projects. Some of them work quite well, and 

too often they do not. 

We held a hearing here 2 weeks ago, and the focus of our hearing 

was major weapons systems cost overruns. And as it turns out, 

GAO told us 10 years ago, in the year 2000, that our major weapons systems cost overruns was $42 billion. And GAO testified 2 

weeks ago that our major weapons systems cost overruns is $402 

billion. It went from $42 billion in 2000 to $402 billion last year. 

And as we drilled down on why that was happening, we got a 

couple of answers. One of those is that sometimes the technologies 

that are being proposed to use on these weapons systems are what 

they call immature, meaning they have not really been fully developed. 

Second is the agency, the military branch, or service may not 

have fully figured out what they want, and they continue to do 

modifications to the projects. We call it ‘‘project creep.’’ 

The third thing is we do not necessarily do the best job of making sure the acquisition folks with experience are bird-dogging 

these projects and that they have the kind of clout that they need 

in order to blow the whistle when things are going wrong. 

We had an example from a fellow named John Young, who was 

the top person in the Bush Administration, the second term, for acquisition, and we had one of his deputies, his top deputy for acquisition. He is an Assistant Secretary for Defense. We said, ‘‘Talk to 

us. How long have you been in your position?’’ He said, so many 

months. And we said, ‘‘What kind of turnover did you get from your 

predecessor?’’ And he said, ‘‘Well, I did not get any turnover. My 

predecessor left 18 months before I did.’’ We said, ‘‘No kidding.’’ 

‘‘Tell us about your direct reports. How many direct reports do 

you have?’’ And he said he was supposed to have six, and only two 

were filled. 

So here is like the top person really in the Department of Defense whose job it is to make sure we are getting our money’s 

worth. There is an 18-month lapse between when he comes in and 

the guy before him left, and only two out of six direct reports were 

there. So it turns out the guy who is in that position today in this 

Administration, his nomination was held up for 15 months—15 

months before he was actually allowed to go to work. So those are 

the kinds of problems that have led to $402 billion cost overruns. 

When you drill down on it, how have we gotten into the situation 

that we are in where we have $80 billion worth of projects and 

maybe a quarter or so are at risk? I do not know, maybe, David, 

this is good one for you, Mr. Powner. 

Mr. POWNER. Yes, well, a couple things. One is—and I think a 

lot of this is tied to Mr. Kundra’s IT reform plan. You could start 

with program management. There clearly needs to be strengthened 

program management across the government where, to your point, 

we define what we want well up front; we have a way to manage 

risks. 

But on top of that program management level, what happens 

many times—and it has been the subject of many hearings that 

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15 

you have held, for instance, like what happened at the Census Bureau—we have a lack of executive accountability. Many times when 

a project gets in trouble, they blame the program manager instead 

of a key executive who should be overseeing that, including the 

CIO. And I think when you look at Vivek’s reform plan, one of the 

five major areas is governance. There needs to be better governance over these projects from an executive point of view. In fact, 

that is what Vivek is attempting to implement through his 

TechStat sessions. 

So, Senator Brown, to your point, yes, we have held over 50 meetings, and we have saved $3 billion. But your chart up there 

shows that there are 300 that need attention right now, and if we 

projected that, I mean, there could be $20 billion of savings if there 

is any success like he has had on those first 50. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Anybody else want to take a shot? 

What I want to make sure is that we figure out what the problems 

are, the major problems are, and to make sure through executive 

action and through legislative action that we are actually going 

after the root problems. Mr. McClure. 

Mr. MCCLURE. Yes, I think Dave hit it on the head. It is governance and program management, but those have been the same 

problems that we have been pointing to for the last two or three 

decades in Federal IT. 

I think what this Administration is doing is trying to focus program management and governance on transparency. You have to 

get this stuff out in the open in terms of the status of projects. It 

cannot be buried in an agency. It has to be a fact-based assessment, not an emotional appeal. And it has to be near real time. We 

cannot do this reporting months after something has already occurred. 

And, finally—and I think Vivek is doing this with TechStat— 

these things have to be focused on problem solving, not reporting. 

We can report, but we still miss what do we do to fix it. So I think 

we have to change the agenda to problem solving. 

Senator CARPER. Good. That is a good point. 

Mr. Kundra, before I yield back to Mr. Brown, Senator Brown, 

go ahead. 

Mr. KUNDRA. Chairman Carper, I still recall my very first meeting with you when I started, and one of the things you pointed 

out—— 

Senator CARPER. Was it that bad? 

Mr. KUNDRA. It was great. You actually highlighted the need for 

reforms, and one of the things I did after I met with you is studied 

history, went back to 40 years of challenges in Federal IT management. And I do not think contractors wake up every morning and 

say, ‘‘Hey, how are we going to make sure we mess up Federal IT 

this morning?’’ And I do not think government employees wake up 

every day and say, ‘‘How are we going to go out there and make 

sure these projects fail?’’ 

Part of what we saw was that the efforts over the last 40 years, 

a lot of it was very much around policy, and there has been great 

policy historically in place. But the challenge was a lack of a focus 

on execution. And the hearings that you have had have been tremendously helpful, and the fact that you have reached out to agenH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

16 

cies to get them to improve the data quality, as Dave mentioned, 

the first thing we wanted to do is just shine light. And what we 

did when we launched the IT Dashboard is we actually put up a 

picture of every CIO right next to the project they were responsible 

for. 

Senator CARPER. No kidding. 

Mr. KUNDRA. With how they were doing in costs—— 

Senator CARPER. I always joke about when you look up in the 

dictionary, you look up a particular word, you have somebody’s picture. 

Mr. KUNDRA. Absolutely. And I was Public Enemy No. 1 for a 

couple of weeks, but I think very quickly we realized by shining 

light all of a sudden we were exposing some of the major issues 

around IT projects. 

And in the 25-point plan, we highlight some of the challenges 

and areas that we need to focus, but I would point to one significant area where I think improving or moving the ball from would 

make a tremendous difference, which is around program management, as both David Powner and David McClure have mentioned. 

If you think about multi-million-and multi-billion-dollar IT projects 

and government officials that are charged with managing them, 

and if you compare that to other industries such as aviation, medicine, and firefighting, you do not set foot on a 777 unless you have 

gone through a simulator and hundreds if not thousands of hours 

of training. You do not get to operate on your first patient unless 

you have gone through medical school, a residency program with 

attendings. Or if you are a firefighter, you actually practice fire 

drills on actual fires before you go out there and put out your first 

fire. 

We have not done that historically when it comes to program 

management, and I think that is a key area of our reform agenda. 

Senator CARPER. Great. Thank you. Senator Brown. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. So, Mr. Powner, just touching base, Mr. Kundra says $3 billion in estimated saving, and GAO says $3 billion in estimated cost 

overruns. So does that mean we are basically at square one or are 

we actually realizing real savings that we can actually put back 

into the Treasury and use in other areas? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, I think it is probably a mixed bag, as Mr. 

Kundra mentioned. I think when we eliminated some of those 

projects—there were four that were terminated—I think those are 

real savings. The restructuring, that is a little uncertain about how 

much real savings there are there. But, again, it probably—the use 

of that money moving forward is—we are familiar with some of 

those projects that are restructured, like the National Archives 

project. That is a good move. 

So a couple points here, though, in terms of savings. If we are 

really after savings, I think looking at those troubled projects is 

one way to go. There is probably another way if you look at—I am 

going to shift gears just real quickly here, Senator Brown. When 

you look at the Dashboard—and we are doing this work for this 

Subcommittee right now. You could look at duplicative spending 

associated with that Dashboard, so there are over 5,000 systems 

that we are investing in. I can tell you right now that there are 

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17 

over—in Fiscal Year 2011 we are funding over 550 financial management systems at $3 billion. So the question is: Does the Federal 

Government need over 550 financial management systems? 

And I can go right down the line. I could tell you—— 

Senator BROWN. I think you know that answer. 

Mr. POWNER. Right. And I can give you example after example. 

So not only do we need to improve the performance of what we are 

spending money on, but there is potential for duplication when you 

start looking within and across agencies. There are 600 H.R. systems in the Federal Government that we are funding. The Fiscal 

Year 2011 funding is $2.5 billion on—— 

Senator BROWN. That is out of control. 

Mr. POWNER [continuing]. On 600 H.R. systems. Those are the 

things that really need further investigation. 

Senator BROWN. So noted. Mr. Chairman, that is your next hearing. 

Senator CARPER. Our next hearing. [Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

How will GAO be tracking the performance of these initiatives 

going forward? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, in terms of—a couple things. Looking at the 

performance of these projects, we continue to do work on an everysix-month basis, we report on the Dashboard, how those numbers 

are changing, and the accuracy and reliability of what is being reported. And then on those duplication numbers, we are doing work 

for the Subcommittee where we will be laying out, by functional 

area, how many investments there are and what the total dollars 

are. And it will raise questions about what is being done to manage 

that more effectively. 

Senator BROWN. So you can certainly make recommendations, 

but you do not have any teeth at all to really drop a hammer down 

and say, hey, listen, you have to stop this. You are making the recommendations to us, and then we are going to take it up the food 

chain. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. POWNER. Yes, clearly, most of our recommendations go to departments and agencies, and right now Mr. Kundra and I work 

very closely together on some of these governmentwide issues, and 

I will say that there is a lot going on in his shop right now. But 

clearly your oversight hearings help with action on those items. 

Senator BROWN. And I know, obviously, with any type of projects, 

it takes leadership. And, Mr. Kundra, what is your plan? Do you 

plan on staying on as the Federal CIO until the plan is seen 

through? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Well, we are focused on executing the plan, obviously, and I am committed to making sure we are executing. As a 

matter of fact, at the end of this month we are going to be celebrating the accomplishments at each of the agencies where they 

have delivered. But what is important here is I can stay on as long 

as it is necessary, but what is really, really important in my mind 

is that this plan, the way we have engineered it, it is not dependent on any single individual. Because at the end of the day, as you 

correctly point out, those 300-plus investments, every CIO in every 

major department needs to be as focused on execution as we are 

within the White House. 

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Senator BROWN. And when you are looking—I know the IT Investment Management Act that Senators Carper, Collins, 

Lieberman, and I are introducing today takes some steps to codify 

some of your office’s successful initiatives, such as the IT Dashboard and TechStat sessions. What else can we do, any other suggestions, to ensure the success of this plan moving forward? 

Mr. KUNDRA. I think, Senator, one of the areas that will be really, really helpful, as Dave points out, some of the duplication, is 

how we look at funding across the Federal Government. And what 

I mean by that is the way Congress appropriates funding is bureau 

by bureau, department by department. I see a huge opportunity 

here in terms of being able to look horizontally across the Federal 

Government, and whether it comes to the 2,000-plus data centers 

or hundreds of whether it is financial systems or H.R. systems, and 

to take a step back and fundamentally rethinking how we are funding IT across the Federal Government. And second would be to actually empower departmental CIOs by consolidating at least commodity IT. And when I say commodity IT, what I mean by that is 

these financial systems, H.R. systems, e-mail, data centers, 

desktops, putting that authority under the departmental CIO, I 

think we will see huge results. And we have case studies such as 

the Veterans Administration (VA) where we are beginning to see 

a much better outcome in terms of the commodity assets. 

Senator BROWN. How do you maintain a robust security of the 

Federal computer networks when you are moving to the cloud system? How do you make sure that we maintain that high level of 

security? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Part of what we are doing actually is looking at 

how we contract when we begin to move a lot of these systems over 

to the cloud. And what I mean by that is already today, if you look 

at 4,700-plus systems, they are outsourced. And we specifically 

specified in terms of contracting language how the systems are 

managed and what the security requirements are. 

Second, one of the things we are doing with cloud computing is 

we are trying to make sure that we get real-time data feeds on the 

security posture of these providers so that the Department of 

Homeland Security and Chief Information Security Officers can 

analyze the data and make sure that we are very aware of what 

is going on as far as the security posture of those systems are concerned. 

And, third, we are making sure that we come up with a common 

set of controls, which is going to be the floor, the minimum set of 

controls that are technical in nature, that we can constantly monitor to make sure that if we are being attacked in any way or if 

those systems are being compromised, that we have that information on a real-time basis. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. McClure, you have been kind of shy today, 

so I figured I would ask you a question. [Laughter.] 

GSA has taken a lead role in the Cloud First rollout. How is GSA 

assisting agencies in this effort? 

Mr. MCCLURE. Well, through a couple of mechanisms. One, as I 

think Vivek pointed out, we are putting in contractual arrangements through our Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) on things 

like infrastructure as a service and e-mail that are cloud based. It 

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allows really the agencies to purchase or provision these services 

in a very cost competitive way and much quicker than going 

through a full and open competition process. So we have done all 

the vetting. We have looked at the vendors. We have qualified 

them as being competent in space. We have done the security reviews. The agencies can purchase what they need from a mission 

perspective. 

The second thing, I think, that we do is actually put together the 

FedRAMP program that Vivek is referring to, working across government, not just GSA, but we are trying to put a simpler, more 

effective, more complete security review for the government that is 

consistent across government and then leverage that once it is done 

rather than repeating them over and over and over again. 

So I think that will tremendously increase the speed by which we 

can get some of the technology solutions in place. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Powner, one final. What are the biggest security risks moving forward toward cloud-based IT services? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, clearly, security is a great concern. I would 

add that, like any project moving forward, you need to define your 

security. One option, moving to the cloud, if a commercial cloud is 

not adequate, there are private clouds you could move toward also 

with greater security. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Good questions. 

Maybe a question for Mr. McClure and for Mr. Kundra. The 

President’s plan contains, I believe, 25 action items, and 14 of them 

are set to be completed within, I believe, 6 months of the plan’s 

issuance. There are about 2 months left on the first crucial timeline 

that has been set. 

I guess my first question to both of you would be: Do you think 

we are on schedule for those 14 items? And if not, which ones do 

you think we will not accomplish and why? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Sure, as I think with 124 days behind us and I believe about 58 days to go, part of what we are really focused on is 

three areas: 

One, in terms of making sure we are working with Congress on 

the budget flexibilities, I think that is an area given that Congress 

has been very focused on the 2011 budget and now the 2012, we 

have not made as much progress as I would have liked on moving 

forward in that direction. 

The second area that we are very, very focused on right now is 

actually on the program manager path, the career track. I think we 

are in good shape there. We are very focused in terms of shutting 

down the 800 data centers. We have already identified over 100 

data centers that agencies have zeroed in on that could be shut 

down this calendar year. We are making a lot of good progress 

on—— 

Senator CARPER. What do you do? Do you ask the agencies to 

help identify them? Is that the way it is working? 

Mr. KUNDRA. So we have actually put together a Data Center 

Consolidation Task Force, and that task force is zeroing in on each 

of the departments, and we are looking for opportunities to consolidate, not just within departments but across the Federal Government. And so those are the data centers that we want to shut 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

20 

down, but we want to move forward very, very aggressively to 

make sure that assets that are not being utilized, there is no need 

to waste taxpayer money on them. 

Senator CARPER. As the Postal Service struggles with trying to 

figure out how to be vibrant and play a critical role in the 21st century, they are looking to close down not just post offices but also 

distribution centers. And there is a pushback. Are you getting 

pushback on these efforts to close the data centers? Or is it pretty 

much a fait accompli? 

Mr. KUNDRA. I think once we release the locations and the 

names, I am sure there is going to be a lot of robust discussion 

back and forth. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Mr. KUNDRA. But I definitely expect that we will be before this 

Subcommittee talking about this. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good enough. 

Mr. McClure, any thoughts on that question? 

Mr. MCCLURE. Yes, I think some of the things that I discussed 

in the statement today are helping the Cloud First strategy. The 

infrastructure as a service offering, the cloud e-mail offering, the 

ability for agencies to get software in the cloud off of our apps.gov 

Web site—these are all helping the agencies meet, I think, the 

Cloud First deadlines that the Administration has set. 

We also are helping create a pre-RFP collaboration platform so 

that industry and government can actually talk about solutions before we enter into the laborious contracting and procurement process. I think that will be very helpful. 

The final area I think we are helping is in data consolidation in 

that we do a lot of the leg work for Vivek and collecting a lot of 

the information. And we can step back with Vivek and look, similar 

to what Dave is doing, on where we see real opportunities for cloud 

and consolidation across government, not just within a single agency but across government, and that is really where I think a lot of 

progress can be made as well. 

Senator CARPER. OK. I think you have spoken to this. I am going 

to drill down on it just a little bit more. Each agency is supposed 

to identify three must-move systems to the cloud within the first 

3 months of 2011, and let me just ask again. Have all the agencies 

met this goal? I think you may have responded, but have all the 

agencies met this goal? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Yes, they have submitted—I think we have about 

75 systems that have been identified that will move to the cloud, 

and part of what agencies are doing right now is making sure that 

they are looking at their security requirements, procurement strategies, to actually begin migrating over to the cloud. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Again, another question for Mr. Kundra and Mr. McClure. I am 

sure you are both aware of news over the past couple of days concerning Google’s claim that their Apps for government cloud product received Federal Information Security Management Act 

(FISMA) certification and accreditation from GSA. According to 

press reports, the Department of Justice (DOJ) notified Google in 

December 2010 that its Apps for government was, in fact, not 

FISMA compliant. To help provide some greater clarity on this 

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21 

issue, I would just like to ask both of you, if you would, to comment 

on the recent reports and discuss how OMB and GSA are addressing the concerns that are raised by them. 

Mr. MCCLURE. Sure, I would be glad to bring some clarity to it. 

In July 2010, GSA did a FISMA security accreditation for Google 

Apps Premier. That is what the Google product was called, and it 

passed our FISMA accreditation process. We actually did that so 

that other agencies could use the Google product, and we do one 

accreditation, and it is leveraged, again, across many agencies. 

Since that time, Google has introduced what they are calling 

Google Apps for government. It is a subset of Google Apps Premier. 

And as soon as we found out about that, as with all the other agencies, we have—what you would normally do when a product 

changes, you have to recertify it. So that is what we are doing right 

now. We are actually going through a recertification based upon 

those changes that Google has announced with the Apps for government product offering. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Kundra, any comment, please? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Well, from an OMB perspective, we do not actually 

get involved in individual procurements. We are more focused on 

the broader policy around this shift to cloud computing. 

Senator CARPER. All right. I appreciate what you both have said 

here today, but given the potentially serious nature of the news, I 

have asked my staff to followup with your offices today on this 

issue so we can try just to get to the bottom of it. And I would also 

like—I am going to ask that you respond to any questions for the 

record that the Members of the Subcommittee may have on this 

same issue. 

Another one for Mr. Kundra and Mr. McClure and then I will 

close it with a short question for Mr. Powner. 

Today the continuing resolution (CR) introduced in the House, H.R. 1473, gives, I believe, $8 million to the Electronic Government 

Fund. This fund, which is often referred to as the E-Government 

Fund around here, pays to operate the IT Dashboard, 

USAspending.gov, among other things. And I understand that your 

original request was for around $34 million. 

Given this steep cut, will the E-Gov Fund continue to operate as 

it has in the past? Or can we expect some of these Web sites to 

go dark? 

Mr. KUNDRA. Well, I think given the original request versus 

where we are right now, we are still evaluating the implications, 

but we are going to have to make some tough decisions around 

which systems are going to have to go offline versus what can be 

supported with the $8 million fund. Since this is very recent news, 

we have not had a chance to actually sit down and prioritize systems. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Senator Brown has already asked a 

question about what further can we do to be helpful, supportive, 

and constructive, and I am going to come back to that and ask you 

what will be really the last question I ask of you. But before I ask 

that—and you have given us some thoughts already, but I want to 

just ask you to reinforce and re-emphasize some of your points. 

In each of your minds, what are the metrics for success for the 

President’s plan? What are the leading indicators that the ConH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

22 

gress and the American people can look to in, say the next 14 or 

so months to tell us if we are successful or not? Mr. Powner, do 

you want to go with that first? 

Mr. POWNER. In terms of the IT reform plan, I would say getting 

more of those projects into the green would be one large area, and 

also in the data center arena, the goal to reduce 800 data centers 

by 2015, that in the next year or 18 months, to Mr. Kundra’s point 

that we are making progress on that, that is a stretch goal, but the 

stretch goals are very good. 

Senator CARPER. Good. All right. Mr. McClure. 

Mr. MCCLURE. Well, I think the IT reform plan covers so many 

different things that there are a lot of different ways to look at the 

measurement of its success. For example, we know we need to, as 

Dave has mentioned, and Vivek, that we need to improve program 

management in the government. That is not something you solve 

overnight. So some of these will have longer-term success measures 

than others. But I think the real things for us to focus on and we 

are focused on is looking at real cost savings, No. 1. No. 2, making 

sure as Vivek goes through the TechStat that poorly performing 

projects cease or at least they are repaired or fixed before they proceed. And then, last, I think the measures for IT that are really 

golden are whether it is improving the business, the operations of 

government. 

So we really ought to be looking at the operational metrics of 

government and the service delivery of our programs. That is what 

IT is supposed to be helping do. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. Mr. Kundra. 

Mr. KUNDRA. I would say three quick things. No. 1 would be to improve the yield on the $24-plus billion we 

spent on infrastructure, whether that is through shutting down the 

800 data centers or shifting to cloud. 

Second would be to make sure that the money we are spending 

on large-scale IT projects that we actually terminate, turn around, 

or halt poorly performing projects that could yield billions in savings. 

And third, I think creating an ecosystem where we introduce 

Darwinian pressure as far as startup companies and innovative 

technology companies that can come and compete for Federal business. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Senator Brown, while you were out of the room, I told the panel 

that the last question I had for them is really one that you have 

already asked, but it is a real good question, and I just want to 

come back to it again. It is one I often ask panels in discussions 

of this nature. 

Again, just re-emphasize for us, underline for us the things that 

we need to continue doing on our side as one of the three branches 

of government to get to, in this arena, better results for less money. 

Mr. Powner. 

Mr. POWNER. Well, a couple points here. Mr. Chairman, we have 

been at this for many years, but right now we have the best transparency we have ever had with the IT Dashboard. So I think your 

bill that would codify some type of—where that transparency continues, that is clearly needed. And also, each year that we are up 

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23 

here, we are always talking about hundreds of projects totaling 

near $20, sometimes $25 billion at risk—that has not changed over 

the years. We now have probably the best reform plan we have 

ever had, so in terms of the best transparency and the best plan, 

now is the time to execute to those plans. So I think your oversight 

hearings focused on those areas, along with your legislation, is very 

helpful. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. McClure. 

Mr. MCCLURE. I would agree totally. I think the role of the Committee in shining transparency on exactly what is happening in the 

government is a change lever that the Congress needs to utilize as 

much as it possibly can. 

Second, I think the budget process is a difficult one in the technology area because we assume that technology projects magically 

begin and end within a budget cycle, and many can but not all do. 

And yet we restart or recalibrate the discussion through the budget 

process. So aligning some of the budget needs with the technology 

cycles I think is something that the Congress should look at as 

well. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Kundra. 

Mr. KUNDRA. I think, Mr. Chairman, you are commended to really bringing a focus on Federal IT, which is not necessarily the sexiest subject in government. So I really appreciate the focus that you 

have brought over the many years. 

The areas that I think would be really, really helpful, I think the 

bill that you focused on and what I have seen working with your 

teams, seems to be transformational. 

Second would be the focus on the budget authorities; especially 

consolidating commodity IT under departmental CIOs would be extremely helpful in moving this conversation forward. 

Senator CARPER. Great. All right. That is very helpful. Thank 

you. 

Senator Brown, any last questions before we excuse this panel? 

All right. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today and 

for the good work that is going on, and let us just not relent. Let 

us keep it going. Thanks so much. 

All right. Panel No. 2. I like to say we were saving the best for 

last, but those first guys were pretty good. We will see. 

The first witness on our second panel is Steve O’Keeffe, Founder 

of MeriTalk Online, a Government IT network that focuses on driving the Government IT dialog. A 20-year veteran of the Government IT community, Mr. O’Keeffe has worked in both government 

and industry. In addition to MeriTalk, Mr. O’Keeffe has founded 

Telework Exchange, GovMark Council, and O’Keeffe & Company. 

Nice to see you. Welcome. 

Rishi Sood—is that correct? 

Mr. SOOD. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Has your name ever been mispronounced? 

Mr. SOOD. Every day. 

Senator CARPER. OK. All right. Hopefully not here. Mr. Sood is 

Vice President of Gartner Incorporated, a major information technology research and advisory company. Mr. Sood has spent the 

past 17 years at Gartner, but his recent focus has been dedicated 

to cloud computing and cybersecurity policy in government. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. O’Keeffe appears in the appendix on page 80. 

Our final witness is Mr. Al Grasso, President and Chief Executive Officer of MITRE Corporation. Nice to see you. MITRE Corporation is a leading not-for-profit organization which provides 

high-level analysis and information related to information technology and modernization. 

We welcome you all. Thank you for your preparation and your 

willingness to spend this time with us, and we look forward to 

hearing your testimonies. Again, your entire statements will be 

made part of the record. If you would like to summarize, that 

would be just fine. 

I am told we are going to have a vote at noon, high noon, so that 

will give us an opportunity to complete each of your testimonies, 

and then what I will probably do is just run—if we only have one 

vote, I am just going to go to recess for a few minutes, run and 

vote, and then come back and we will ask a few questions. 

Mr. O’Keeffe, would you like to lead us off? Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN W.T. O’KEEFFE,1 FOUNDER, 

MERITALK 

Mr. O’Keeffe. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. What did you say? 

Mr. O’Keeffe. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. I am just kidding. [Laughter.] 

You were not born in Mississippi, were you? 

Mr. O’Keeffe. No, I was not born in Mississippi. Just next to it. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. It is great 

to be back. My name is Steve O’Keeffe, and I am the Founder of 

MeriTalk, the online Government IT community. We are here 

today to talk about OMB’s 25-point plan to fix Federal IT, and I 

would like to start with a quick comment about cloud computing, 

which is central to OMB’s plan. 

As you mentioned, this is not Mick Jagger’s cloud that we are 

supposed to get off. In fact, many Federal agencies have already 

jumped on the cloud. This is not pie in the sky, if you will pardon 

the puns. Cloud—— 

Senator CARPER. That is pretty good. I think you are on a roll 

here. 

Mr. O’Keeffe. Here we go. Cloud—— 

Senator CARPER. You are going to be a tough act to follow. I hope 

you guys are taking notes. 

Mr. O’Keeffe. I will be here all day. 

So cloud is delivering very real savings and enhancing agility at 

Federal agencies like National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Department of 

Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This is not experimental stuff. These 

are very real savings. 

So maybe to kick off, why should we modernize Government IT? 

The Federal Government currently spends north of $80 billion, 

with a ‘‘B,’’ on IT. That is a lot of jingle—33 percent more than the 

gross state product of Delaware, incidentally. 

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25 

Despite talk about doing more with less, these numbers continue 

to grow. I have been in the Government IT community for over 20 

years, and every year the budget seems to go up. 

Agencies are spending nearly half their IT budgets, some $35.7 

billion, supporting legacy technologies in need of modernization. 

And so to the 25-point plan. Like many others, my first review of 

OMB’s 25-point plan ended in confusion. Twenty-five points. Really? When I was a small boy in school, I had profound challenges 

remembering the Ten Commandments, and, of course, there were 

only 10 of those. 

As we did last year for the Committee’s open government hearing, MeriTalk launched a survey of the Federal IT community to 

get government and industry perspectives on the 25-point plan. We 

asked respondents to rate each point of the plan based on whether 

it was, one, desirable and, two, doable. And taking a leaf out of 

Ross Perot’s book—for those people who remember the election—we 

have charts again, and I think those are in front of you, Senator 

Carper. 

The net up-front is that the community feels that all points are 

desirable, but there are some serious questions about executability. 

Interestingly, government employees are less optimistic about 

doability than their industry counterparts. 

We asked the community to rate each point in the 25-point plan, 

and as you can see from the All Respondents chart, the 

scattergram, the community does not place equal value on all 

points. Interestingly, the evolutionary, nurturing and easy-to-understand points score best—Katie doing Vanna White here—with 

Point 7, design a formal IT program management career path, topping the charts. 

The most revolutionary initiative rated lowest. See Point 3, 

Cloud First. 

Other disruptive initiatives did not fare that well either: Point 1, 

data center consolidation, hit roughly in the middle of the pack. 

And Point 2, enabling a governmentwide marketplace for data center availability scored poorly as well. 

Now, let us look at civil versus defense. As you can see in the 

charts, civil and defense respondents march very much in lockstep. 

Point 7, design a formal IT program management career path, and 

Point 10, launching a best practices collaboration platform, top the 

charts. Interestingly, civilian agencies are more focused on Point 

16, reducing barriers to small innovative technology companies, a 

point that Vivek hit pretty hard, I think. Due to their dynamic mission, defense agencies have embraced this approach long ago. DOD 

demonstrates a greater appetite for shared services as well as optimism for executability. 

Now to government versus industry. Interestingly, with the exception of government being less optimistic about the ability to deliver, government and industry are almost precisely on the same 

page. The exceptions include that industry prioritizes Point 8, requirement to scale IT program management career path, as well as 

Point 15, requirements to issue guidance and templates to support 

modular development. It is no great surprise that these points are 

important to contractors that are interested in getting it done. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr Sood appears in the appendix on page 93. 

Closing out the survey, we asked what one thing would respondents recommend that the government do to improve Federal IT. 

Both government and industry suggested that we attach accountability to objectives. Other hot recommendations: allow CIOs to retain funds they save, eliminate unfunded mandates, and reduce the 

number of objectives. Clearly, less is more. 

The net take-away from the study: To increase the impact of efforts to fix Federal IT, we need to simplify the message and focus 

on the three C’s—consolidate, connect, and calibrate. 

Consolidate: Less is more. 

Connect: The Federal Government’s senior IT professionals are 

not equipped for nor experienced at driving change. We need to 

communicate the why, how, and what it means for your career in 

order to successfully operationalize desired change. 

Calibrate: We need to set goals that we really can and mean to 

measure, and we need to follow through on measurement and hold 

executives accountable. We need to recognize that the changes on 

the table are not easy. We should set realistic timelines, and we 

need to establish venues and tools to support Federal IT professionals as they move through the profound changes. 

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting 

a different outcome, then Mr. Vivek Kundra deserves high praise 

for introducing much-needed new thinking into Federal IT. Federal 

IT professionals estimate that data center consolidation and cloud 

can drive upwards of $14 billion, again with a ‘‘B,’’ in efficiency 

savings. Mr. Kundra is asking for $25 million to fund the Federal IT fixes. The return on investment on this $25 million is hundreds of 

dollars for pennies invested. The point here is not that we should 

focus on the easiest or most popular initiatives. OMB needs to 

prioritize and focus hardest on the programs that offer the highest 

return on investment. That means cloud and data center consolidation. We need to listen to feedback from the community, set a clear 

vision, and build an operational framework to realize the changes 

that we seek. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Senator CARPER. We thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Sood, please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RISHI SOOD,1 VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT 

VERTICAL INDUSTRIES, GARTNER, INCORPORATED 

Mr. SOOD. Chairman Carper and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. 

My name is Rishi Sood, and I am Vice President of government research at Gartner. Gartner is the world’s leading information technology advisory and research firm and is a valuable partner to 

60,000 clients and 11,000 distinct organizations, including the Federal Government. 

In examining the President’s plan, I would like to focus on the 

growth in Federal IT spending, the elements of the plan that will 

have an immediate impact, and reform issues that will be important over the long term. 

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To begin with, Federal IT spending has exploded over the past 

decade. According to my research at Gartner, traditional IT spending by Federal Government organizations was approximately $32.2 

billion in 2001. This year it will reach $80.1 billion. This is an increase of over 248 percent over the past 10 years. 

While much of this IT expansion is justified by growing Federal 

operations, insufficient analysis has been given to the cost effectiveness of IT spending. Additionally, some of the spending increases have not been effectively coordinated, resulting in some 

cases in technology sprawl across the Federal Government. 

Given this dramatic rise in Federal IT spending, there are a 

number of questions that need to be addressed. What is the value 

and cost effectiveness of IT spending? To what extent is accountability adequately built into the IT spending? And what steps 

should be taken to invest the right amount in the right applications 

while avoiding costly mistakes? 

While these questions are always important, they are even more 

important in light of the current budget battles and fiscal constraints that will affect Federal IT spending. Not only will Federal 

agencies face slower growth in IT spending over the next decade, 

but there also may be cutbacks to current levels of IT spending. 

Urgent action is needed to improve IT spending because reforms 

will take time to show results. 

In the end, however, the value of IT comes from the impact of 

technology on government operations, increased productivity, lower 

cost of service delivery, and increased customer service. To succeed 

in these times, government must harvest the upside potential of IT 

while limiting the downside risk of implementation failures. 

Let us discuss some of the parts of the reform that will have an 

immediate impact. 

President Obama’s 25-point reform plan is a strong path forward 

to align the needs of Federal Government organizations with budget realities. The reform creates guardrails needed to guide technology operations while continuing to promote innovation and accountable technology use. In many respects, the reform plan lays 

the initial foundation needed to answer the questions raised earlier: value, accountability, application size, and mix. 

Several of the areas of the reform plan will likely be most important for Federal technology management practices. These include: 

No. 1, the focus on an empowered CIO position. Empowered 

CIOs are needed to set enterprise goals, push standardization 

through the organization, and drive more efficient technology use. 

By strengthening the CIO position, there will be greater accountability for achieving targeted agency goals. 

No. 2, move to a data center consolidation plan. The increase in 

data centers across the Federal Government has been dramatic. 

The task now is to consolidate these data centers to drive down 

costs and increase efficiency. Harvesting economies of scale is critical for the effective allocation of information technology investments. 

And, No. 3, the focus on shared services. The move to shared 

services provides an important means for Federal agencies to maximize the value of technology, create a services-led approach to techH605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER

28 

nology delivery, and build more efficient IT services across the government enterprise. 

Now let us look at some of the longer-term reform issues in front 

of us. The President’s reform plan includes other strategically important goals that will likely require a longer time horizon to implement. These include additional investments in government personnel. The Federal Government will need to invest in Federal contract officers, acquisition officers, and program managers to drive 

and execute real change in procurement, acquisition, and management of technology projects. 

No. 2, technology vendor outreach, partnerships, and buy-in. An 

effective technology and service provider community is an essential 

part of Federal success with IT. As larger reforms take root, it will 

be vital for the Federal Government to increase its outreach to the 

vendor community, continue to work in partnership approach with 

this community, and to secure a strong buy-in for the changes 

ahead. 

And then, No. 3, an agile approach to IT. One of the most difficult yet important aspects of the reform plan involves building a 

modular approach to technology investments. This will span multiple parts of the technology life cycle and will likely require more 

effective and detailed use of newer methodologies, like EVM and 

PPM, to support these goals. 

In addition to the issues described above, it will be important for 

Federal officials to recognize the following: 

No. 1, timing. The reform plan includes goals for 6-, 12-, and 18- 

month time periods. While these goals are laudable, they may be 

overly ambitious. The Federal Government is an enormous enterprise, and it is difficult to achieve significant structural changes in 

a short time horizon. 

No. 2, assisting agencies through the change. While some agencies have embraced the changes proposed, other agencies may be 

more resistant to change. As the reform plan moves forward, proper incentives and disincentives will be critical in moving agencies 

in a cohesive fashion. 

And then, No. 3, technology as a silver bullet. In the end, it must 

be recognized that information technology represents the best 

mechanism to improve government efficiency and lower the cost of 

service delivery. Consequently, IT must remain an important area 

of continued aggressive investment. The critical issue now is to protect and incentivize the IT reforms noted here so that Federal IT 

will maximize results while minimizing mistakes. 

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. That was great testimony. Thank you 

so much. 

Mr. Grasso, welcome. Very nice to see you. 

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Grasso appears in the appendix on page 98. 

STATEMENT OF ALFRED GRASSO,1 PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE MITRE CORPORATION 

Mr. GRASSO. Thank you. Chairman Carper, Senator Brown, honorable Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the 

opportunity to appear in front of you today on this very important 

topic. 

As you mentioned, my name is Alfred Grasso. I am President 

and CEO of the MITRE Corporation. Our company’s 50-plus years 

of experience, contributions, and accomplishments have given us a 

perspective that I believe is highly relevant to the topic of information technology planning and management. 

Information technology-intensive programs operate in an environment of rapid technology evolution where new generations of 

technology are introduced in months rather than years. Unfortunately, currently the Federal acquisition processes and budget cycles are not well matched to these timelines. OMB’s 25-point plan 

is a positive step in the IT reform process. 

As I observe the state of IT management in the Federal Government, I am struck by the amount of attention paid to the failures 

versus time analyzing the successes for critically important lessons. 

There is a strong tendency to impose new policies, processes, and 

reporting requirements in an effort to avoid future failure. These 

requirements introduce a burden that reduces agility, imposes 

costs, and delays the delivery of capability. 

In an interesting study conducted at the Defense Acquisition 

University, students determine that a ‘‘null program’’—that is, a 

program that delivers absolutely nothing but satisfies mandatory 

reporting and process requirements—takes about 3 years to complete under the current rules. A system that requires 3 years to deliver nothing is clearly fundamentally flawed. 

The 25-Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management is based on practices that work. We 

applaud OMB, Mr. Kundra, and the Federal CIO Council’s leadership on this topic. However, experience leads us to observe that additional steps can be taken both to enable successful implementation of the plan and to expand on some of the important goals defined in it. With that in mind, enduring change will require the following: 

First, establish IT governance that includes authorities and flexibilities where they best contribute to the success or failure of these 

programs, without losing transparency into how these portfolios are 

performing. 

Second, build and empower PMOs by incentivizing and professionalizing key management and technical roles to motivate people 

to adopt these roles as careers, not simply jobs. 

Third, define and build IT capabilities that are both secure and 

resilient. 

The first step is to establish a governance model that combines 

a comprehensive portfolio management and budgeting approach 

with close coupling to the end user. The goal from my experience 

is to provide the authority for CIOs to manage their budgets as a 

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portfolio, with the flexibility to shift resources to address changing 

needs, changing technology, and increasing agility. 

Fundamentally, the problem is this: The investment decision 

process occurs 12 to 24 months before the budget is actually made 

available, but the scoping, planning, and foundational technical 

work necessary to make a sound investment decision cannot be 

taken that far in advance and without some limited budget authorization. The 25-point plan proposes to work with Congress to realign this process, and we agree that is an important thing to do. 

I strongly encourage Congress to take the necessary steps to realign the budgeting model and allow CIOs and portfolio managers 

to exercise the strategic decisionmaking that their peers in the private sector have had for years. 

In addition, the plan raises the need to align the delivery and 

technology cycles through incremental delivery. Again, I agree. 

However, it is critical that the increments be defined by sound, upfront architecture and systems engineering and the timing of increments be linked with the operational tempo. Sound systems engineering performed early in a program’s life cycle has a strong correlation with improved project cost estimation and schedule planning. Likewise, alignment with the operational tempo ensures that 

technology drops have clear business value and leverage IT infrastructure to support future cost-effective delivery of capabilities. 

The second critical step is to establish strong program management offices by incentivizing and professionalizing the key roles for 

successful IT program delivery. In my past testimony to this Subcommittee, I emphasized the importance of maintaining strong 

technical and management capabilities within the PMOs. 

It continues to be my experience that successful programs are 

characterized by a strong government PMO capable of acting as a 

strong technical peer with contractor counterparts on systems engineering topics. The individuals assigned to these program offices 

must view their position as a career and not simply a job. Incentives play a key role in attracting and retaining competent program 

office personnel. Establishing a career progression gives individuals 

the opportunity to secure greater responsibility and pay commensurate with increased degrees of proficiency. 

The third area of extreme importance is securing information 

systems and ensuring their resilience. This should be a critical aspect of any investment, and it warrants major investments in its 

own right. All too often security is regarded as an afterthought, 

and all too frequently concerns about system vulnerabilities are 

used to justify making less transformational investments and adhering closely to the status quo. 

It is critical that the architecture and design of IT systems address both vulnerabilities and the capabilities required to withstand a breach. These factors should be key to the evaluation of 

any IT investment to avoid additional costs downstream. This is a 

topic on which the Federal CIO, the CIO Council, and the Congress 

can provide more leadership. They should send a clear message 

that government information technology investments must not only 

be aligned with business needs, deployed incrementally and managed properly within budget and schedule, but also must be 

architected, developed, and operated with a clear eye on protecting 

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public and private data and continuing the critical services government performs for the public. 

Achieving the results expected of the 25-point plan requires a 

major transformation that spans many aspects of the Federal Government’s operations. The many elements of the 25-point plan reflect two sets of related priorities: Adopting new technology that 

enables greater efficiency and establishing an enduring foundation 

of capabilities to plan, manage, and execute IT programs more successfully. I believe the latter represents both the greatest challenge 

and the true imperative. Without the opportunity, authority, and 

resources to accomplish these goals, the success rate in adopting 

new technology will continue to suffer. 

I am supportive of the direction of the 25-point plan as well as 

other similar action plans developed and being implemented across 

many agencies today. I am encouraged by this Subcommittee’s 

clear interest in taking steps to codify methods and operating models that we know to be successful and on the increased emphasis 

on develop foundational capabilities that will endure beyond contemporary solutions. 

I believe if these steps are taken, the promise of the 25-point 

plan can be realized, and the priority it lays out will have lasting 

value. 

I respectfully request that my prepared statement be included in 

the record, and I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

Senator CARPER. And we will be pleased to make your prepared 

remarks part of the record. 

That was an excellent summary. 

Thank you for your testimony, all of you. It was just superb. 

You may have heard that a vote has started, and I am going to 

run and vote, and we will just recess for a little bit. When I come 

back, the first question I will ask you—you can be thinking about 

this. I am going to ask you to reflect on the testimony of each of 

the other two witnesses appearing with you and some things that 

you think that you really agree with or maybe you are not sure 

about. And if there is anything you would like to look back to the 

testimony of our first three witnesses, to comment on what you 

heard there that might be appropriate to raise. We will start with 

that, and we will probably go for about, 15, 20 minutes and then 

adjourn. 

All right. Thanks very much. I will be back in about 10 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

I am going to ask that we reconvene. Thank you for your patience and for bearing with us, and now let us resume. 

Just before I left, I indicated that my first question was going to 

be to ask you to reflect on what your colleagues here at the table 

have had to say and for each of you just to do that, and if you have 

any reflections on some of the testimony and the answers that the 

first panel provided for us, I would welcome either of those. 

Mr. Grasso, would you like to lead us off, please? 

Mr. GRASSO. Sure. There were several points that have been 

made throughout the day here today that I think are especially valuable, and, in fact, one reflects a question that you asked earlier. 

I think it should be no surprise to anybody that what is presented 

in the 25-point plan is a significant change agenda. And when it 

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comes to change, there is indeed quite a bit of resistance to change 

because it imposes on people’s equities in some cases and threatens 

others. 

So we look at things like data center consolidation and so forth, 

while we have, I think, admirable objectives, there is no doubt in 

my mind as we progress in this area that there will be obstacles 

in achieving those objectives. But I believe, with the proper level 

of leadership, attention, and perseverance, that we could overcome 

those obstacles. 

What we really do need to do is to ensure that the right incentives are in place for everybody so that we are all moving in the 

same direction. 

Senator CARPER. Talk a little bit more about that, please? 

Mr. GRASSO. All too often there are individual incentives. Everybody around the table is incentivized for their own personal career 

growth for a number of reasons. There are organizational incentives and there are incentives that are given to contractors in supporting the activities. 

So if you look at those three different incentives, today many of 

the individual incentives really are less focused on the outcome of 

the activity, and they are more focused on what I would call a career track for an individual. 

If you take a look specifically in the military, the job rotation and 

the assignments a person has been in is more important perhaps 

than staying in an assignment for a long enough period to see an 

outcome fulfilled. So we are finding folks rotating more often than 

should be. 

Inside industry, if you have a successful program manager on an 

important program, rest assured that person will be rewarded from 

a career perspective while on that program and as he or she transitions out of that program. It is often not the case where someone 

can get rewarded by staying on the same program for a number of 

years beyond what would be typical for that kind of assignment inside of government. So the incentives need to be properly aligned 

to ensure that they are indeed pursuing what they believe to be a 

very strong career track. 

And the last point I would make is the topic of accountability. 

We all need to be accountable for these outcomes, and I think it 

is important to recognize that the successful outcome is one for 

which a number of stakeholders are involved. And there needs to 

be a shared sense of accountability, not just the CIO is accountable 

and he or she will succeed. All of the stakeholders need to share 

that level of accountability and need to be incentivized to do so. So 

I think those are some key points that were made. 

One last point that I think Rishi made is the business value. We 

talk about IT sometimes exclusive of the value that it delivers to 

transform the business and to deliver new capabilities or perhaps 

to deliver current capabilities more effectively. So we need to ensure that the IT community and the mission side are very closely 

connected to ensure that it is delivering the business value that it 

was intended to deliver. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. Those are very good points. 

Thank you. Mr. Sood. 

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33 

Mr. SOOD. I think there was really valuable testimony by fellow 

panelist Mr. Grasso here that really focused on sort of the governance issues, that focused on really the program management and 

career path issues associated with maintaining this course across 

the Federal Government. I think that is a vital aspect of the reform 

plan, the amount of investment that we are putting back into the 

agencies and the personnel within those agencies. 

I also think Mr. O’Keeffe has provided some really valuable data 

straight from governments directly, straight from the agencies and 

the vendor community directly in really interesting ways, not just 

what we should be doing and what is appropriate and what they 

think is appropriate about the reform plan, but also what is doable. 

And that juxtaposition between what can be done or should be 

done and what can be done over a short period of time I think is 

very valuable. It gives you a sense, I think, as Chairman of this 

Committee, really to look at the level of resistance that might be 

focused on some of the major reform plan items and the need to 

really push and lead those issues forward. 

I just want to make another comment, though, that was specific 

to the earlier panel, the government panel directly, because I think 

they made a number of points which were talking about transparency about this process, about the fact that you have been dedicated to holding these hearings and really shining a light, if you 

will, on this process. 

The combination of the IT Dashboard, the combination of the 

TechStat strategies, the combination of the hearings you are holding I think truly are making some of those first steps toward reforming the entire process and getting the level of waste and the 

level of efficiency out of the IT pantheon. So I applaud those efforts. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks for saying that. Thank you. Mr. 

O’Keeffe. 

Mr. O’Keeffe. I wish you had told me there was a test beforehand. I would have paid more attention. 

Senator CARPER. This is a pass/fail course. [Laughter.] 

Mr. O’Keeffe. I think there has been some very valuable testimony, and the perspectives of my fellow panelists here have been 

terrific. 

I think that the incentive point that Mr. Grasso makes is right 

on the money. We need to look at why people are going to be 

incented, what we refer to as ‘‘What’s in it for me’’ (WIIFM)? 

There are programs that have been launched at various Federal 

agencies where if you uncover savings opportunity, you get to keep 

50 percent of that money. And what has the result been? No savings opportunities have been uncovered because they already have 

100 percent of the money, so why would they want to identify a 

program in order to lose half the budget? 

If you look at things like data center consolidation—and John 

Collins has been involved in some of those meetings—we are looking at the ability to consolidate data centers in other agencies’ data 

centers. Well, we had a data center lead from an agency out in 

Austin, Texas, who said that—he called around to agencies in the 

area in Austin and San Antonio to identify what other agencies 

might have space so he could consolidate into them. And what he 

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found was nobody had any space. Why would they have space? Because if they allow him to consolidate into their data center, they 

lose that space and effectively they lose budget. 

So I think we need to look at some of the fundamental incentives. What are the carrots? What are the sticks? And, importantly 

where is the dog bone here? How are agencies like GSA eating 

their own dog food? Which I think is tremendously important. 

I think Rishi’s perspective in terms of organizations like Gartner 

can provide terrific crossover from what has happened in the commercial market so we can identify best practices for government, 

which are critical. 

I also think there were some interesting perspectives shared 

from GAO saying there are 600 H.R. systems in the Federal Government, $2.9 billion. Clearly there is an opportunity for synergies 

and shared services. 

There are 4,700 systems currently outsourced. Vivek mentioned 

that. So when we talk about security, clearly there are security 

issues that exist in the current model. In many circumstances 

agencies are using security as a way not to move to cloud, and I 

have participated in testimony myself where we talked about the 

problems with leaky systems as they exist today on premise. 

I think some of the numbers about how many agencies have 

moved to cloud first are also very interesting. I would be curious 

to get more transparency into that, and also the discussion about 

the 14 items on the 25-point plan that are up in 6 months. I think 

the question about how far we have moved on those is a little unfair inasmuch as we are not sure what funding has been attributed 

to the 25-point plan. 

So I think just overall, as we look at—I am just looking up here 

at the crest above your head: E Pluribus Unum; From many, one. 

And so this notion of what we are trying to do as a Federal Government, I think we need to look at it as, how can we all work together in order to move the ball forward? And, critically, as we look 

at cloud computing, E Pluribus Unum really could be a motto for 

cloud computing inasmuch as the notion of everyone doing their 

own thing is not going to solve the problem. We do absolutely need 

to bring the resources together in order to provide a better, more 

effective, more efficient solution, not just for IT but for America. 

Senator CARPER. That is great. Believe it or not, your reference 

to those Latin words behind me is giving me an idea for my closing 

thought. So that is good. 

This is really a question for all three of you, if I could, and let 

me just start with Mr. O’Keeffe. First, we want to thank you and 

your team at MeriTalk for the information you were able to provide 

today regarding the agency officials’ feelings about the 25-point 

plan. Very interesting. You find in this detail that both government 

and industry want accountability attached to the objectives of the 

plan, and they also suggest CIOs be able to retain funds that they 

save. 

I want to ask each of you on the panel to discuss these two ideas. 

How do you propose we insert stronger accountability and stronger 

financial incentives into the management of Federal IT? And I will 

ask, Mr. Grasso, for you to lead off, and then I will just say I studied as an undergraduate—at Ohio State, I studied some economics, 

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my professors would say not nearly enough, But I got an MBA at 

Delaware and studied a little more economics. But I have always 

been fascinated by how do we harness market forces to drive good 

public policy behavior. I have always been fascinated with that. 

So, Mr. Grasso, when you said in your remarks—I think you 

talked about aligning the incentives. I look at almost everything, 

almost every issue that comes before us here. How do we have the 

incentives aligned? But would you want to take a shot at that? 

How do you propose that we insert stronger accountability and 

stronger financial incentives into the management of Federal IT? 

You have already commented on this a little bit, but you might 

want to add to it. 

Mr. GRASSO. Mr. Chairman, this is obviously a very tough topic. 

If we had the answers, we would probably be employing them as 

we speak today. But from an accountability perspective, all too 

often we measure accountability by activity and not necessarily by 

outcome, partly because activity is measurable We could measure 

that you did something and how well you did that something. But 

did all of those activities lead to the outcome that you had desired. 

Senator CARPER. I like to say we measure progress—or we 

incentivize progress. 

Mr. GRASSO. That is exactly right. So I would say it would be a 

good first step to really develop a set of shared outcomes that are 

defined well enough and not so far into the future that it will be 

several careers before you could achieve those outcomes, but outcomes that are indeed measurable, as is in this plan, where you 

have 6-month increments. You are not just measuring progress, but 

there is a very specific, tangible outcome which connects the entire 

community together and would be a shared success for the community. So that means that it is an outcome that has responsibility 

of the developer to deliver something, the user to accept it and to 

start using it, and the test community to ensure that they have a 

program that is in place in the right time sequence. 

If we become more outcome focused than activity focused, I think 

attention to accountability will increase significantly. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. Mr. Sood. 

Mr. SOOD. Yes, just to dovetail on Mr. Grasso’s points there, I 

will go back to my written testimony that really focused on the 

business value of IT. I think too often in the reform or in the discussions about the reform plan, there has been focus on whether 

Project X or Project Y should be canceled or not and what are the 

cost savings associated with that. 

I think in many respects CIO Kundra made a very important 

point, that when he did the first pass of the at-risk project list and 

took a look at the four that were terminated and the 11 that were 

reformed, if you will, the more important side of that was the 11 

that were reformed because at the end of the day the business need 

is still going to be there for whatever the technology initiative initially was there. 

So being able to tie back incentives and being able to tie back 

that process to what is really the impact on the agency’s specific 

business process or the outcome that they are trying to achieve I 

think is a fundamental part of how we look at reform. It is not simply about taking the 2,000 data centers and moving them down to 

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a manageable 1,000 or what have you. It is really about how efficient those data centers are and how much are we leveraging the 

economies of scale in running those data centers so that they are 

impacting real business issues. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. O’Keeffe. 

Mr. O’Keeffe. I think to accountability, transparency is the answer. We need better data. The IT Dashboard is a great move. 

There are still some significant fidelity issues in terms of the quality of that data. But the best way to drive accountability is transparency, and I think that has been talked about. We need to continue to invest in those resources. 

We need to make sure that we do not make claims about what 

is out there that is not out there. And so if you look at things like 

the subcontractor database that was announced in the Washington 

Post 6 to 8 months ago, the quality of that data still is not particularly good. So we need to make sure that people are rewarded, 

which goes back to incentives. 

I think that when you look at IT people—and we are hiring them 

right now—they are very difficult—very good quality IT people are 

very difficult to hire, especially if you look at people, for example, 

who are building mobile applications, some of the more progressive 

disciplines. And so the public sector needs to work out how to 

incent these people to work in the government and to stay in the 

government. There are many, many excellent IT people in the Federal Government. But if you have a culture where you cannot afford to hire the best and, candidly, you have significant challenges 

getting rid of people that do not perform, then what kind of culture 

does that breed? 

I think there are many opportunities for the government to 

incent and motivate these IT executives and professionals and 

practitioners. This should not be about the beatings will continue 

until morale improves. And if there are too many unfunded mandates, it is very difficult to get out of bed in the morning and feel 

good about what you are doing. 

So we do not have the ability to open up the pocketbook and just 

lavish money on these people, as many private sector organizations 

are. But we can look at things like telework where we can give people the flexibility to work from home. We can look at some of the 

prizes that are out there right now where we can reward innovation coming from the government. And I think we also need to look 

at what we are outsourcing. So maybe some of these more interesting, more engaging projects, instead of outsourcing those to contractors, we could be looking at providing those exciting projects for 

government employees to work on. 

Senator CARPER. All right. All good ideas. Thank you. 

A question for Mr. Sood and Mr. Grasso. In your testimony 

today, you both noted how the President’s plan incorporates a number of commercial best practices and attempts to bring them to government. One example of this is a move to segmented or modular 

development of IT projects. 

What concerns do each of you have about the ability of government to embrace this approach, how we can make sure that agencies have what they need to make this particular piece of the President’s plan successful? 

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Mr. Grasso, do you want to lead us off? 

Mr. GRASSO. Sure. If we take a look at the technology that we 

are accustomed to in our everyday lives today, whether it be the 

cell phone maybe in your pocket, whether it be the iPad in your 

briefcase, or the laptop, those have become commodities to us. We 

are turning those around anywhere from every 9 months to every 

3 years. But we are able to do so because they are built on a very 

strong foundation and platform that evolves over time, and we do 

not necessarily have to retrain ourselves, nor do we have to restructure our own internal home infrastructure to accommodate 

these things. 

The platform itself is evolving to allow forward interoperability 

of new technologies. It is done because the interfaces are very 

clearly defined. The modularity of components are very clearly defined, and a marketplace has been created where you have many 

contributors and innovators that are working inside this platform 

and this framework that allow it to evolve. So we believe, I believe 

that it is critical that we are able to do this going forward on the 

government side of the house. 

On the government side of the house we have progressed quite 

a bit, but I come from a world where we buy everything all together. If you need to buy a new software system, you buy the 

hardware that goes with it and the infrastructure that goes with 

it then you are evolving the entire thing. You are not building on 

top of a platform. So we need to change that thinking that exists 

today for which fundamentally we need to be interdependent. We 

need to allow service providers to provide that platform, that infrastructure, and build the value-added applications on top of it, allow 

that infrastructure to, in fact, evolve on its own and feel confident 

that those interfaces that evolve will allow my future applications 

to also evolve so that I do not necessarily have to design the underlying infrastructure each and every time I upgrade. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. Thanks. Mr. Sood. 

Mr. SOOD. Yes, I would just say that agility with respect to IT 

is going to be the fundamentally most important way by which we 

really reform Federal Government IT spending over the longer 

term. But in many respects, it represents sort of the antithesis of 

the way the Federal Government has historically really looked at 

IT spending. We have looked at these wholesale, big-bang approaches typically that last over a 2-year procurement cycle, and 

the items or the requirements that you set up front might be obsolete by the time that procurement cycle is over and done with. 

Having a more agile approach really will change that flexible nature, that foundational nature of Government IT spending, but the 

problems or the concerns I guess I would have is: How is Congress 

going to adapt the budgeting part to coincide with this agile approach to IT? How are we going to invest in the next group of contract officers, acquisition officers, and program managers that are 

really trained and seasoned to apply some of those techniques to 

their projects? How do we take detailed methodologies like earned 

value management or product portfolio management and really 

apply that to the agile structure so that, to CIO Kundra’s point 

earlier, we do not get into this road where we are finally assessing 

these projects 3 or 4 years later and they have spent $20, $50, $100 

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million without proven results? We need results or at least a review of results over a much more manageable timeframe. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

The last question is, and this would be for everybody: I want, if 

you would, to just think sort of the big-picture here again as we 

close out, and I just wanted you to think outside of what you already talked about and ask could you go beyond what you submitted in your testimony or even said orally, but are there any 

other final areas of concern in Federal IT reform that are not getting enough air time? What are the things that might be flying 

under the radar, if any, that could come back to bite us later on 

down the road? We will just close with that one. 

Mr. O’Keeffe, any last thought there on that? 

Mr. O’Keeffe. Well, I think a couple points. Cybersecurity is not 

in the 25-point plan, and the comment from Mr. Kundra is that it 

is baked into everything. Teri Takai, the CIO for the Department 

of Defense, asked that question when the 25-point plan was revealed, so I think we need to make sure that we are mindful of 

what is going on in security. 

I think the feedback to date on FedRAMP has not been terrific, 

and so there is an opportunity to do better. 

I think it is great that GSA is listening to the feedback from its 

colleagues in government. 

I think the biggest thing to fear is fear itself and that we need 

to recognize this is changing very quickly. This whole community 

is changing very quickly. We need to be mindful of what can be a 

Luddite mentality. The people who oppose some of these changes 

are often referred to as ‘‘box huggers,’’ people that want their PC 

wherever it may be and they want to be able to go touch it. 

If you look at what has happened in the automotive industry, 

there is going to be significant change in industry. At one point 

there were Packards and there were Bugattis and there were a 

whole series of different cars, Tuckers and what you will. And ultimately we are going to consolidate that in the IT market to a number of players that we cannot subsist. 

And I think in closing if we do not change—here was a superpower at one time that—— 

Senator CARPER. There was a what? 

Mr. O’Keeffe. There was a superpower at one time that was 

structured under a monarchy and did not really recognize the value 

of democracy. And there was a revolution that you are probably 

aware of, which established a new superpower. And I think what 

we need to do is to recognize that the world is changing, and if we 

try to hang onto the way of the past in our society and also specifically in the IT changes that will enable that, then it will not be 

good for our future. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Sood. 

Mr. SOOD. That is an excellent question, and I appreciate the opportunity to address it. 

I think in many respects we in the Beltway get really focused on 

federally specific issues, and we are very insular in that nature. I 

think in many respects we need to take a step back and see what 

we can learn from others, see what we can learn in the 50 labs of 

innovation that take place across State and local government and 

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see what we can learn from global public sector central governments like the United Kingdom or Australia and what they are 

doing with their technology innovation. Or even take some of the 

lessons, as I mentioned in my written testimony, of commercial 

best practices and really not adopt them in government but adapt 

them for the best practices within government. I think that is sort 

of a fundamental issue that we could use more enlightenment on, 

shine more of a spotlight on, as to what are really the innovations 

that are taking place outside of the Federal Government here that 

we could be learning from. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Good. Thanks. 

Mr. Grasso, you get the last word. 

Mr. GRASSO. Throughout this discussion, I have heard the term 

‘‘compliance’’ used quite a bit, and I would offer that compliance is 

necessary but it is not sufficient. We need to do things right, but 

we need to also do the right thing. 

So earlier in this discussion we talked about FISMA compliance 

with Google. What I would tell you is when it comes to compliance, 

compliance is often based on a number of experiences and best 

practices and, thus, a set of processes to avoid issues that were 

seen in the past. 

When you look at topics like cybersecurity, if you comply, you 

will avoid past problems. But it is not sufficient because we are 

learning new things each and every day. So we need to do business 

differently. So we need to go beyond simply compliance. We need 

to create an environment where we empower individuals to take 

the initiative, to assume that change, if you are doing the right 

thing, is actually a good thing. 

We talked about incentives earlier. Many individuals are 

incentivized to strictly comply to all of the rules. It puts them inside of a box, if you will, and sometimes while they are doing 

things right per the process, they are not necessarily doing the 

right thing. 

So I think we just need to be very, very careful. We talk about 

this plan being really a plan of change. We need to create an environment and a culture where change is acceptable and that we 

learn from our failures so that, in fact, we can succeed with the 

changes that we plan in the future. 

Senator CARPER. Well, my thanks, our thanks really to each of 

you for coming back and testifying before us today and in a number 

of cases and for really giving us a lot to think about and, frankly, 

a lot to help us. 

You mentioned in your last comment there, you mentioned the 

word ‘‘culture,’’ and one of the things that I am endeavoring to do 

and this Subcommittee is actually endeavoring to do, is to try to 

change-bit-by-bit the culture in our government. And I said earlier 

in my opening remarks, I believe I mentioned, a lot of people think 

we operate under a culture of spendthrift, and what we are trying 

to do is to move away from that toward a culture of thrift where 

we really ask the question, ‘‘Is possible to get better results for less 

money or for not much more money.’’ And I think in most cases it 

is. 

One of the ways it has dawned on me is that one of the ways 

to get better results for less money is just by doing a better job in 

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the way we develop and build these IT projects. That can really 

help us a lot. That is sort of a basic concept to understand, but it 

is really true. 

So thank you all. I am going to followup with a few more questions in writing. One of the questions I will probably followup in 

writing is: Some of the witnesses said very complementary things 

about our legislation, which Senators Brown, Collins, Lieberman, 

and I have introduced. I really would welcome your thoughts if 

there are some things that are missing or some things that ought 

to be taken out. So we are always interested in constructive criticism. 

Again, thanks for your testimony and for helping to light the way 

for us here in the Legislative Branch. 

With that, we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:56 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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67128.064
105 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.065
106 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.066
107 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.067
108 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.068
109 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.069
110 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.070
111 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.071
112 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.072
113 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.073
114 

Æ 

H605-41331-79W7 with DISTILLER


67128.074