A key step of the federal government\u2019s data strategy action plan is complete: the chief data officer council met Jan. 31 \u2014 marking an important step for the federal government\u2019s pursuit of harnessing its data as a strategic asset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday\u2019s meeting with the CDOs is going to be our operational meeting,\u201d federal CIO Suzette Kent told reporter at a roundtable before the meeting. \u201cWhat is the council charged with? What are their roles and responsibilities? How do we leverage that body to accelerate the items that are in this plan and how do we use that as a body to be helpful to the agencies as they seek to fulfill their duties as CDOs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of federal data strategy year-one action plan, released in late December, the Office of Management and Budget was responsible for launching the CDO council by the end of the January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The federal data strategy year-one action plan outlines 20 actions agencies need to implement in 2020, along with specific deadlines. For example, agencies must identify data they need to answer \u201cpriority agency questions\u201d and publish plans for identifying data assets they\u2019ll make available to the public. Department CDOs, mandated under the Evidence Act signed into law in 2019, are crucial to complete these actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey are some of the primary individuals we\u2019re counting on to deliver the items in [the action plan],\u201d Kent said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CDO council will play an important role in ensuring that data is treated similarly across the government. Until recently, OMB Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert told reporters, the phrase \u201cbig data\u201d had a different meaning depending on the data user\u2019s role in government. For example, she said, financial officials thought about data for budgeting, while scientists thought of data as a mechanism to drive outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe CDO council is really an operational arm \u2026 around the overall framework for the President\u2019s Management Agenda and data as a strategic asset \u2013 so standardization is a huge component of that,\u201d Weichert said, referring to the document that details the federal government\u2019s modernization priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to action seven of the plan, the CDO council will \u201cmeet regularly\u201d and develop resources pertaining to the best practices of data protection and dissemination, along with encouraging agencies actually use the resources it produces. In terms of metrics for success, the CDO council will be evaluated on the number of resources it publishes and track adoption of the published best practices by agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council is also tasked with identifying and evaluating new technologies that will advance in how federal agencies collect and use data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not doing data plans for data wonks; we\u2019re doing data plans and data thinking to drive mission, service and stewardship,\u201d Weichert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The year-one action plan is the first piece of the 10-year data strategy horizon. Other actions in the plan include upskilling workforce, taking steps toward better data management and creating frameworks and toolkits for handling data. Kent emphasized in the roundtable that the actions in the first plan were \u201cfoundational,\u201d adding that more will be added in future plans, which will come out yearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt the end of this year, if we have the teams in place with the skills, that\u2019s a success,\u201d Kent said. \u201cIf we have our inventories and our assessments \u2026 that is a win for this year. If we\u2019re starting to bring ideas around how we accelerate both tools [and] sharing, those are wins. Getting agencies to have the conversations and clarity around what they want to solve, those are all exciting moves forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two top OMB officials talked with reporters before the chief data officer council held its inaugural meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":30734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[104,106,31,15,110,14,68,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3242],"class_list":["post-14755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acquisition-update","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-management","category-it-cloud-report","category-it-networks","category-leadership","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PCPFCSV3MZDO5MF4U67TYL2K4I","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2020\/01\/31\/why-the-cdo-council-is-an-important-part-of-the-federal-data-strategy\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n