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The COVID pandemic required all employees to vacate offices and facilities in March 2020. In the Office of the CIO (OCIO) COVID concerns included both the capacity and capability of information technology (IT) services to facilitate fundamental changes in how employees met mission and stayed safe. Emergency situations like storms, wildfires, earthquakes, and accidents all have a localized impact and a finite timeframe. With COVID, the impact was total and the timeframe utterly unknown, creating misinformation and anxiety that significantly impacted operational effectiveness. As the Pandemic Coordinator for OCIO, it was my responsibility to address this challenge while representing OCIO in Departmental COVID activities. 

I applied a two-fold strategy; make clear and accurate communications to colleagues and staff a priority while balancing mission fulfillment with employee safety regarding operational tasks. 

From a communications perspective, I committed to creating frequent, multi-channel efforts designed specifically to maximize awareness of COVID and related events. I built presentations for employees that included available resources for national, state, and local activities. Links to Federal resources for policy updates, particularly the workplace safety plan as it was developed and updated, were provided to all OCIO employees. I gave all employee requests for information priority; the answers shared wherever appropriate. Every email regarding COVID was addressed personally. More than 800 contact tracing events across OCIO were completed while securing privacy and complying with CDC, White House, and Federal Workforce Safety Task Force requirements.

Mission requirements were addressed through technology and process changes. I coordinated the adoption of virtual access tools that let OCIO staff work remotely, directly engaging customers and devices from anywhere. I supported the adoption of collaboration tools and platforms, allowing access to team members and their materials. The enterprise virtual private network (eVPN) allowed secure access to resources and, as bandwidth across this service became a challenge, incremental increases in the service accommodated increased traffic without disruption. 

I advocated policy and process adjustments across OCIO centers, which accounted for local infection rates, physical distancing requirements, individual susceptibility to COVID, and household requirements when scheduling tasks. This adjustment in approach to servicing infrastructure demonstrated my interest in employee well-being while ensuring task completion. 

My record of consistent and accurate communications, combined with interest in employee safety, minimized challenges with service coverage. The consistent customer satisfaction survey response over the course of the pandemic and the record of project completion during this time reflects the effectiveness of my approach during a challenging time.  

USDA had little to no standardization of desktops, laptops, and tablets across the Department. With procurement authority spread amongst individual Agencies or even programs, procuring new hardware depended on funding availability. The more random the procurement activities, the more diverse the make and model of the devices procured, making the hardware portfolio very complex and quite expensive to support. USDA needed to develop a straightforward means of streamlining the hardware portfolio while accommodating Agency and Office purchasing activities. 

First, I was tasked with identifying how purchasing devices could be simplified. Conversations with procurement specialists identified the Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) as the mechanism to employ, minimizing overall procurement paperwork and giving USDA a “one-stop shop” for purchases of this type. 

Second, I realized the need for an integrated project team (IPT) to collaborate on requirements. I requested representatives from all agencies and offices to provide a voice from each into the requirements themselves. The series of meetings to create the IPT, collect the requirements from the various agencies and offices, and consolidate them to a concise list of items for the request for proposal was long and contentious. I employed two approaches to bring the IPT to a consensus; maintaining focus on efficiency gains the BPA will provide, and a constant effort to reach agreement on even minor differences in requirements.

Third, I understood the importance of creating the processes for ordering from, updating items listed on, and addressing service challenges with the BPA. From a communications perspective, this element required the most frequent and transparent conversations with IT and Business leadership. The BPA was a concept that could be understood readily by leadership, but the ordering processes drew scrutiny from all manner of employee groups. I accommodated this challenge by assigning priority to clear and open dialogue, with any group and at virtually any time. Accepting recommendations from across USDA agencies, and providing evidence of acceptance in the finished product, fostered agreement as well. 

My execution of the first contract provided lessons learned but validated the approach. As patching compliance and deployment success rates increased substantially, IT leaders not only embraced the BPA vehicle but offered technological improvements to further streamline the ordering and fulfillment process. The BPA also facilitated adoption of an Enterprise Depot, further streamlining order and receipt of hardware. As guidance further defining workstation ordering and support has been released over time, the BPA puts USDA in a better position to meet those requirements across the Department and moves USDA closer to private-sector behaviors regarding cost-effective end-user support.

USDA had little to no standardization of desktops, laptops, and tablets across the Department. Even with the implementation of a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA), procurements were haphazard. Between Fiscal Year 2022 and 2023, USDA averaged 1,402 orders per year for laptops alone, 100 times more than several Federal agencies. This lack of coordination incurs tremendous cost in order processing, tracking, and deployment. It also doesn’t allow for the cost-per-unit discounts that bulk purchases provide, driving USDA’s laptop average to more than $2,000 each. As budget challenges for Fiscal Year 2025 became apparent, USDA needed to streamline procurement of end-user devices to save money and gain efficiency. I developed the Departmental Computer Asset Management (DCAM) service to address these needs. 

First, I tasked myself and the DCAM team with crafting a compelling case for Mission Area consideration and adoption. The critical initial step was to clearly lay out the problem statement in a manner that resonated with both IT and business leaders, and demonstrate the validity of the research performed. The practices described in the DCAM proposal and strategy documents borrow heavily from virtually all Fortune 500 companies and an increasing number of public sector organizations. I relied on research performed across the Federal space and, in coordination with research organizations to solicit private sector feedback, collected compelling evidence of outright cost savings and resource efficiency gains. 

However, a key challenge for USDA in adopting these practices is the federated nature of the department. Organizations are accustomed to ordering what, when, and how they choose, and in some cases have invested heavily in their specific processes. DCAM needed to allow for organizations to adopt it as a service on its own terms. By implementing the service as a year-long pilot and developing memoranda of understanding to capture the participation, I reduced or removed concerns about the adoption process.

Secondly, I ensured the integration of Mission Area, Agency, and Office personnel into the DCAM process in two key areas. From a hardware perspective, the ability of an organization to support the devices that appear on the hardware catalog is essential to securing participation. We have a Hardware Advisory Committee the reviews and selects the devices to be included on the revised BPA catalog. From a financial perspective, participating organizations need transparency and flexibility in ordering and payment processes. DCAM provides program-level order tracking to ensure fiscal accountability, and collects individual orders into quarterly procurements to get the best cost-per-unit. 

Lastly, the communications requirements of a sweeping change like DCAM required significant investment in the quality and quantity of artifacts. I led the creation of a SharePoint presence dedicated to DCAM that is updated regularly and provides consistently available general information and frequently asked questions. I have also presented on the DCAM concept more than a dozen times to the CIO Council, Working Capital Fund, and the Integrated Advisory Board to solicit feedback and adjust the pilot as needed. The net result is a service that will address a significant inefficiency and provide actual cost savings at a time where USDA needs it most.