Continued progress is being made in the three priority areas making up the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) since they were first unveiled more than a year ago by the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the latest PMA quarterly update released on November 30.
“Today’s updates show accomplishments to date, milestones teams are working towards, and a highlights section for each priority area that demonstrates what this work means for the American public,” notes the update, which was shared by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in its charter to serve US presidents and oversee the implementation of their visions across the executive branch.
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For Priority 1—Strengthening and Empowering the Federal Workforce—cross-agency teams representing approximately 20 agencies have accomplished milestones, and set out new activities to address some of the biggest challenges facing the federal workforce, the government said.
For instance, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in September convened the first-ever chief diversity officer council meeting. OPM and partner agencies also created working groups to focus on ways and means that agencies could support the well-being and mental health of federal employees. Moreover, OMB and agencies facilitated the use of IT and cloud-based collaboration tools that support interoperability within and among agencies by approving 10 FedRAMP-authorized software tools.
For Priority 2—Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services and Customer Experience—teams made significant progress implementing Executive Order 1458, the President’s mandate for the government to transform federal CX and service delivery to rebuild trust in the authorities.
As an example, when the Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) saw that the Medicare.gov website was visually inconsistent and forced repeat visitors to go through the same series of steps each time they searched for plans, CMS used extensive user interviews and prototyping to better understand users’ needs and inform a new website design. The result was a redesigned and more visually consistent site with streamlined navigation and improved mobile optimization.
Finally, for Priority 3—Managing the Business of Government—cross-agency teams are working to achieve President Biden’s vision to leverage federal acquisition and financial assistance systems to advance priorities for the country.
For instance, leaders in federal acquisitions are looking to increase the number of new small business entrants within priority supply chains in the federal marketplace. Agencies are also working to adopt innovative acquisition practices to reduce barriers to entry into the federal marketplace, improve performance and CX, and save money. And for federal financial assistance, agency leaders have set out to define and launch a framework to strengthen and formalize the governance of federal financial assistance issues across federal agencies.
These efforts, overall, are just a few of the numerous actions that PMA teams have already taken, and plan to take moving forward, to drive these critical PMA priorities, the government says.
The PMA defines government-wide management priorities for all federal agencies to improve how the government operates and performs. For the Biden-Harris administration, its PMA agenda focuses on “strategies to advance the vision of an equitable, effective, and accountable government that delivers results for all Americans, in accordance with the values of equity, dignity, accountability, and results.” To this end, the PMA works to advance each of the three PMA priorities and their supporting strategies, with cross-agency teams further seeking ways to assess and measure their progress across government organizations.
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Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
