SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Since working for the federal government for five months, I have attended two government sponsored conferences. Both were held in large hotel ballrooms or conference rooms, at taxpayer expense. Yet I can think of several federal buildings (Department of Interior, Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce) that have auditoriums or large conference rooms. In fact, the building I work in has a conference room... more »

One of the most significant issues when developing or acquiring new IT technologies is inconsistent and inadequate cybersecurity measure’s to meet Government IT requirements. In most cases, security is often overlooked, or not considered until much later in the process. By not addressing security early and often throughout the lifecycle, it can pose significant risk to Servicemembers, the DOD, National Security, cause... more »

The importance of Open Standard technology is a critical need for improved sharing and exchange of service-member health information and data between the Department of Defense - Health Affairs and the Department of Veterans Administration community of interest (COI) as indicated in Section 1635 of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA, 2008). A community of interest is a collaborative group of users that must... more »

The idea is to use an open standard Enterprise Service Bus that integrates the functionality of a service oriented architecture (SOA), which can create a more agile and effective enterprise solution, to significantly reduce cost, provide a more flexible and adaptable environment, and resolve current interoperability issues that hinder the use of web technologies.This solution will: 1. Reduce cycle time of IT acquisition... more »

For decades Legacy system integrators have failed numberous times to provide adequate capabilities to meet the needs of the DoD and other Federal Agencies as indicated by numnerous GAO reports. Yet we continue to use them. Through these failed strategies, the GAO has determined that the many capabilities cause significant cost overruns and are inadequate to meet the needs of today’s changing military mission and National... more »

I continue to see on the news about how much is being cut, but I have not seen any changes. I do believe the amount of waste is simply annoying, but I have not read anything in my agency about any real cuts or changes to improve the way we operate.

The real incentive to improve the way we operate does not seem to be very important.
I have attended speeches at large hotels with over 200 hundred employees that are forced... more »

It would be nice if..... The public sector saw the Government as we really are. We are good workers who take pride in our work and service we provide. I have experienced many 'large' companies who just don't perform as we do. They can not give good service, and/or are not accountable for their service or product. We pay around 200,000 people each pay period with a 99% accuracy. We have a help desk that logs problem areas... more »

In our Department we use a single learning system for training. That is the good news! It's very cost effective. Now for the bad news! Some offices responsible for ensuring particular topics that are mandatory to be trained on continue to create their own training when there are adequate training modules already purchased for use through out the Department. In some cases this can cause a 400% increase in training creation!... more »

Placing veterans service representatives (VSR) into the field one at every county office. The VSR would actually talk with the claimant clarifying all information he or she is submitting. Copy the file into virtual VA and notification can be verbally/written no waiting 30 days for VCAA response. Since the VA is going papperless this will provide faster service to the veteran and create the I Care system that the VA is... more »