Michael Rigas, Acting Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), outlined his priorities for the next President’s Management Agenda (PMA) at today’s ACT-IAC Shared Services Summit, including investing in emerging technology and data management.
Rigas – who was nominated by the White House yesterday to fill the deputy director position permanently – reflected on his time at OMB and the Office of Personnel Management, and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic to lay out big ideas pushing the Federal government to “rally action and create fundamental change” in the next PMA.
He first recommended increased competition in Federal acquisition to help the government secure more high-quality options at lower prices.
“Less burdensome and commercially friendly innovative practices,” Rigas said, would reduce barriers to entry to allow more small businesses and others into the market. Rigas also called on data and evidence-based decision-making for both innovative acquisition, and to “inform all of our actions.”
Rigas added that managing risk in a way that doesn’t impede on mission outcomes will also be critical in the next PMA. “We have to get better about understanding that every action has risk, and we accept and mitigate risk without jeopardizing the mission,” he said. “But this requires discipline in assessing and managing risk and engaging senior leadership in making these decisions.”
Looking ahead, he urged investments in emerging technologies such as AI and robotic process automation as those investments will change how agencies plan human capital and address mission requirements. He said prioritizing emerging tech investments in the next PMA will “lower the burden of outdated and low value processes and focus both our budgetary and human capital resources on delivering mission and providing excellent service.”
Cutting red tape, Rigas continued, will also help agencies focus on mission delivery. He commended the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce government regulatory burdens and asked for continued progress on these efforts in the next PMA.
The administration published a September 2020 update on PMA progress today marking strides in both Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goals and Agency Priority Goals during the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2020. Per the update, the Federal government continues to streamline how it buys common goods and services in line with the category management CAP goal and modernize quickly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
