The federal Chief Information Officers Council unveiled April 16 the Federal Shared Services Implementation Guide that provides guidance for agencies to adopt shared services.
To help make sense of the framework, FedScoop has pulled out seven highlights from the 48-page document.
Introducing Uncle Sam’s List:
As part of the implementation plan, a team of government IT leaders published a catalog of shared services called Uncle Sam’s List. Agencies will be able to use the catalog to shop for IT services provided by other federal agencies that may be cheaper than those on the open market.
Partnership in the C-suite:
A key to the success of shared services implementation and achieving the desired goals is a documented agreement between the chief financial officer, chief acquisition officer and chief information officer on the need to move toward more shared services when appropriate, the document says.
Portfolio management:
Throughout an investment lifecycle of an information technology project, each checkpoint should be considered an opportunity to re-evaluate a program to see if a shared services offering provides better value.
Look for possible shared services everywhere:
The guide states agencies should have an existing inventory of applications and systems mapped to functions and processes as part of their enterprise architecture. Agencies should start with this list to identify the gaps and redundancies in capabilities to identify shared services candidates.
Pooling resources:
Shared services consumers may pool their resources in some cases, provided it does not exceed the cost or value of the goods or services received. The service may be consumed at a departmentwide level or at a component level.
Quotable from the document:
“Shared services offer agencies the ability to improve their stewardship of taxpayer funds, while enabling them to become more effective in delivering their administrative and core mission services. Interagency shared services are capabilities that federal agency leaders should embrace.”
Considerations for procuring shared services:
- Purchases of services and commodities using a franchise fund or working capital fund
- Centrally funded shared services with incremental costs paid by customer/partner agencies
- Enterprisewide shared service contracts
- Purchases of products and services through Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts
- Strategic Sourcing Agreements
