AFFIRM Panel: Kirit Amin’s Concepts Continue To Have Positive Influence In Government Business Models

Bob Gourley March 18, 2014

I just read a review of a a 13 March session of the Association for Federal Information Resources Management (see AFFIRM). AFFIRM is a non-profit collective seeking to improve the management of information and related systems in the federal government. Lord knows we need AFFIRM now!

The panel of 13 March was part of their monthly speaker series and included

Kirit Amin, Deputy CIO and Chief Technology Officer, US Department of Commerce
Sonny Hashmi, Acting Chief Information Officer, General Services Administration
Lorraine Landfried, Deputy CIO for Product Development, Department of Veterans Affairs
Param Soni, Chief Architect, Environmental Protection Agency
Pete Tseronis, Chief Technology Officer, Department of Energy

My source on this panel is a Mark Rockwell article in Federal Computer Week (FCW) titled “Project Management, Jedi Style“. Mark captures many great ideas from the panel and is great about crediting the many powerful thinkers in that group. But the entire discussion especially made me think of Kirit Amin. Followers of federal thinkers have long watched as Kirit has helped us all understand the importance of staying connected with the business end of agencies, and he has long caused us to think by invoking metaphors of Yoda and the Jedi. I think of Kirit whenever I hear this construct. It really is all about the mission, and his articulation of the “GEAR Approach” for Goal, Engage, Accountability, Results is a great way to track how IT is serving business missions.

I also love the professionalism of these other great IT thought leaders. Sonny Hashimi, Lorraine Landfried, Param Soni and Pete Tseronis are champions with great reputations and I can tell from this Mark Rockwell article each are having tremendous impact on the mission end of their agencies.

Regarding AFFIRM, one of the fantastic things they have been doing is recording their sessions and posting them online so you don’t have to have them filtered by the press (or me) to capture the content yourself. This particular session is not online yet, but as soon as it is I’ll point you to the video, I think it will be a great one.

About Bob Gourley

Bob Gourley is the CTO and Co-Founder of the due diligence and cybersecurity consultancy OODA LLC , which publishes CTOvision.com and OODAloop.com. Bob's background is as an all source intelligence analyst and an enterprise CTO.

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