Weekly Roundup: February 17-21, 2025

Artificial Intelligence

AI Ops Is Helping Agencies Stop IT Failures Before They Start. As federal agencies grapple with increasingly complex IT environments, AI Ops – which applies AI to automate IT operations – is a growing approach for organizations to identify and resolve system problems faster. Traditional IT service management (ITSM) focuses on mean time to repair, while AI Ops enables organizations to be more proactive. As AI Ops has evolved, experts say, it has become even more proactive and follows a clear progression aimed at ultimately creating self-healing IT systems that not only predict issues but remediate them autonomously – driven by the integration of AI within the IT environment.

CTA’s Shapiro: Fed AI Progress Needs Gov’t Employees, Not Just DOGE. The federal government and industry may see more innovation in emerging technologies with friendlier policies from the Trump administration, but misguided leadership could end up stifling progress, said Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro. Shapiro said he believes friendlier policies toward AI innovation that are likely to be implemented by the Trump administration will boost AI and robotics development – which he said could end up bolstering government efficiency. Shapiro, however, warned that the best technology recommendations are more likely to come from government employees, and not from the recently formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“I’m Afraid We Are Automating This Work Without Really Understanding It”. AI is often touted as a way to handle busy work to free people up for tasks that matter. But in the race to add automation to pretty much every job, it’s rare that people question what, exactly, people are being freed from, and which tasks actually matter. This interview with sociologist Allison J. Pugh explores what she calls “connective labor,” why it’s under threat from automation, who will be most affected, and what we’ll lose as humans if it disappears.

Workforce

Federal Firings, Resignations Edge Toward 100,000 Mark. Thousands more federal employees have been fired over the past week. Those cuts boost the total of federal employee firings and deferred resignations to about 94,000, or about 3.9 percent of the federal civilian workforce at the beginning of the second Trump administration. According to multiple reports, the Trump administration began firing about 6,700 employees at the IRS on Thursday. The cuts are focused on probationary employees and about 5,000 of the fired employees were a part of the agency’s compliance teams.

Judge Denies Mass Fed Firings TRO, Unions Push Second Suit. A federal court judge on Feb. 20 blocked a request from five Federal employee unions for a temporary restraining order (TRO) challenging the Trump administration’s reduction-in-force executive orders and “deferred resignation” program. Judge Christopher R. Cooper, a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, said in the Feb. 20 decision that the court “likely lacks subject matter jurisdiction” to grant a TRO and referred the plaintiffs to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA).

Budgets

Pentagon Plans $50B Budget Reshuffle to Pay for New Priorities. The Department of Defense (DoD) is gearing up to cut $50 billion over the next five years from its current budget lines to shift funding to “higher priority defense projects” that would align with President Donald Trump’s “achieve peace through strength” mandate. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed a departmentwide review to identify offsets in the agency’s budget that could be “realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for national defense,” according to an announcement by the Pentagon.

White House Aims for Sweeping ‘Non-Statutory’ Cuts After 60-Day Review. President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) that focuses the administration on finding ways to cut from the federal government’s “non-statutory” activities – or those not specifically described in laws approved by Congress. Federal agency leaders are being given 60 days to work with their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) teams and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to scour the government for those kinds of programs and activities. “Ending federal overreach and restoring the constitutional separation of powers is a priority of my administration,” the order says.

Labor

Labor Nominee Promises ‘Deeper Look’ Into DOGE Access, Fed Workforce. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Labor, promised at a Senate nomination hearing on Feb. 19 to take a “deeper look” into how the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is approaching the agency and impacting its workforce.

Defense

DISA Targets End of FY2025 to Achieve Federated ICAM for Military Services. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) aims to consolidate all Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) solutions across unclassified networks for all military services into a unified hub by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025. DISA established the federation hub at the end of FY 2024 to integrate existing ICAM solutions to unify and streamline access management across the Department of Defense (DoD). “We expect by the end of this fiscal year to have completed the federation activities with all of the military departments,” Brian G. Hermann, Ph.D., director and program executive officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Program Executive Office Cyber, told reporters today.

DoD, Fed Officials Pushing for Smarter, Safer AI Integration. As artificial intelligence technologies become more integrated into government operations, two military officials said on Feb. 13 that agencies can adopt a range of strategies to mitigate risks associated with AI adoption while also fostering more positive perceptions of the technology among their workforces.

Veterans

VA Deputy Secretary Nominee Pledges to Fix EHRM Program. Paul Lawrence – President Trump’s nominee to serve as deputy secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – pledged to lawmakers that, if confirmed, he will work to get the VA’s Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program “back on track.” During a confirmation hearing, Lawrence pledged to work with VA Secretary Doug Collins to improve EHRM’s rollout. “I think I would probably foot stomp urgency,” Lawrence told the committee. “We can’t spend months again studying what’s going on and figuring it out.”

Leadership

How to Develop Your Executive Presence. If you’re a leader or aspire to be one, you’ve probably thought about how you project confidence and competence—or, what some call your executive presence. It’s as much a vibe you give off as it is a skill you can develop. And it’s important to exhibit if you want to assure others, you’re ready to lead. This episode discusses the key elements of executive presence and offer advice to a listener who’s trying to develop it while working remotely.

Using AI to Make You a More Compassionate Leader. AI lacks authentic human understanding and self-reflection. Employed the wrong way, it can lead to interactions feeling even more transactional and people feeling less heard, but AI can complement leadership to increase the well-being of those you lead. The key is using the technology with the right intention to enhance human compassion.  The authors show how leaders can leverage AI for personalized coaching, enhancing communication, and understanding employee diversity, ultimately fostering greater connection and engagement in the workplace.

Can You Tell a Genius Strategy from a Huge Mistake?  Chess can be played at different speeds, and when master players observe one move in isolation without knowing the kind of chess being played, it can be hard to identify smart play from poor play. Likewise in business, judging decisions can be difficult because of differentials in timing. Some investors focus on the extreme short term; others have an infinite holding period, and the kinds of managerial decisions that will be smart for one type of shareholder are often poor for the other.

Zero Trust

NIST Recommends Zero Trust for Digital Twin Tech Uses. The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a new report that highlights potential use cases of digital twin technologies and recommends adopting a zero trust cybersecurity model when engaging in digital twin development. The report detailed trust concerns that digital twin tech approaches raise including those related to manufacturing defects, functional equivalence, and accuracy. The report defines digital twins as “the virtual (i.e., digital) representation of a physical or perceived real-world entity, concept, or notion.”

THIS WEEK @ THE CENTER 

RECENT BLOGS 

• Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and Agile Government by Edward DeSeve and Michael J. Keegan. This essay takes Michael’s insights and compares Senge’s five, “Disciplines” to the “Elements” of agile government and finds them very compatible. In fact, Senge was promoting agile before it was even invented.
• Decoding the Next Steps in AI by Chuck Royal. In this blog series, we will examine how to put AI to work in government. As AI continues to change how government operates, this series will explore the applications of AI in the public sector, innovative case studies, use cases, and the potential impact on governance, service delivery, and citizen engagement.

 ICYMI – Turning the Power of Mindset into Action. This week Michael Keegan welcomed to discuss the performance paradox, what is the difference between learning while doing and learning by doing and how can overcoming the performance paradox make government executives more effective.