The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has introduced a suite of platforms to help managers, leaders and employees optimize federal agency workplaces. The Accelerating the Gears of Transformation kit is comprised of resources and guides in line with workforce development, OPM said Wednesday. 

Some of the tools within the suite include a group of steps for workforce transition, a reskill toolkit for human resource personnel and a decision-making playbook for leaders. In addition, the office intends to use the resource kit to modernize government and HR capabilities.

“The technology and workforce needs in the Federal workplace are changing rapidly, which means we have to change our thinking around talent management,” said Margaret Weichert, acting director at OPM. “Federal agencies will have greater capacity to redeploy workers, through reskilling efforts, to meet their most pressing, mission-critical needs,” added Weichert.

The U.S. Navy has created a squadron to help the military service experiment with surface warfighting systems and integrate unmanned surface vessels into the fleet, DVIDS reported Wednesday. Surface Development Squadron ONE, which the Navy re-designated from Zumwalt Squadron ONE, will coordinate USV requirements and develop material and technical tools to address tactical challenges for the service branch.

Capt. Henry Adams will lead SURFDEVRON ONE to accelerate the development and delivery of new technology to the surface force. Naval Base San Diego will serve as the new unit’s headquarters. Specifically, the squadron will manage and maintain medium to large USVs such as the Sea Hunter and Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer ships.

Vice Adm. Richard Brown, commander of Naval Surface Force, announced the formation of SURFDEVRON ONE at a ceremony held Wednesday.

Analysts from the U.S. Air Force see to it that bad data must undergo evaluation with senior leadership before fixing, Fedscoop reported Wednesday. Frank Konieczny, USAF chief technology officer, said the service branch is working to keep data flaws uncensored. Data flaws may include obsolete formatting, typos and incorrect or incomplete input.

“We want the seniors to actually see the bad data so that they yell at people to get it fixed,” Konieczny said at a recent event of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. He also said his team is working to segregate accurate data and faulty data via meta-tagging to allow for systematic use of both data types. 

A NASA official said the space agency has transformed its cybersecurity posture since it implemented the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program in 2016, Nextgov reported Wednesday. 

CDM “has tremendously helped NASA not only implement certain tools across the agency, but it’s also helped change and it is changing the culture and the discussion around cybersecurity overall,” Willie Crenshaw, program executive for CDM and risk management at NASA, said Wednesday at an FCW-hosted event. 

Crenshaw mentioned how CDM helped improve its cyber response efforts and identify its assets. “We know more now than we did three years ago about what’s on NASA’s network,” he added.

The Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum updating the identity, credential and access management policy for federal agencies.

Agencies should transition their ICAM strategies and platforms from the levels of assurance model towards a new framework “informed by risk management perspectives, the federal resource accessed and outcomes aligned to agency missions,” according to the memo issued Tuesday by Russell Vought, acting OMB director. 

The document directs agencies to comply with the requirements set by the Office of Personnel Management with regard to issuing and revoking personal identity verification credentials and implement measures to manage access control. Under the memo’s Shifting the Operating Model beyond the Perimeter section, agencies are advised to include in all contracts a requirement to comply with the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 and Federal Information Processing Standard 201 for contracting staff. 

The policy recommends the use of Tier 2 and best-in-class contract vehicles, shared services and the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program to acquire digital certificates and other ICAM-related capabilities. OMB enumerated ICAM-related directives and deadlines for the departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, General Services Administration and OPM. 

The official managing the Department of Defense’s acquisition enablers initiative sets policy updates and less acquisition regulations and cybersecurity standards as top priorities to accelerate adoption of new military capabilities, National Defense Magazine reported Wednesday. 

“If we can create a more modular approach to the way that we buy capabilities, we can deliver them faster,” Stacy Cummings, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for acquisition enablers, said at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference. “We can get them in the hands of the user faster, we can test them faster and we can reuse them when it makes sense across [DoD].” 

She said her office wants to revise policies to reduce paperwork and acquisition oversight and to establish a solid acquisition strategy. The initiative would provide tailored acquisition processes and tools to help DoD bring capabilities faster to service members. 

The policy updates would also include a new cybersecurity certification process that would enable vendors to offer products to all DoD programs. Cummings’ office plans to work with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute to create the certification. The acquisition official plans to implement the changes across DoD in 2020. 

The Department of Homeland Security has called on the staff at its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to consider serving as volunteers at the U.S.-Mexico border to address the border crisis, The Hill reported Wednesday. 

“Our expectation, though, is that CISA would make risk-based decisions on the types of professionals they would free up for this kind of mission and balance against their day jobs and their current focus,” Kevin McAleenan, acting DHS secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, told lawmakers Wednesday at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the department’s budget request for fiscal 2020.

McAleenan stressed that he would not back efforts to deploy “critical” cyber personnel to the border. CISA Director and fellow 2019 Wash100 Award winner Christopher Krebs said at a separate House hearing that about 10 agency employees have been fielded to support border security operations, which could last for a month or up to 45 days.