2014 Year in Review

We’ve been Getting Back to Basics at OIT, and last year, CIO Kurt DelBene introduced his “IT as a Product Group” blog series, which describes how we’re navigating the same macro digital environment as private industry and applying private sector business strategies to build high-quality products, brand loyalty, staff retention, and operational excellence here at VA. We’re focusing on reducing downtime, better customer communication, efficient resource management, and improving our security posture. Explore how we continued to drive Operational Excellence in 2024 through our video, Rise to Resolve.

Our sacred duty is protecting Veterans’ information

We’re responsible for defending VA’s large and complex digital footprint — which supports the world’s largest integrated health care system. With more than 19.5 million Veterans, their families, and their caregivers depending on VA for healthcare, benefits, and memorial services, this responsibility is personal for all of us.

To maintain a strong security posture, VA embraces a Zero Trust Strategy as our North Star. While cybersecurity becomes ever more complex, VA’s Zero Trust Strategy guides us with a simple framework: operating under the assumption that every user, request, and server is untrusted until proven otherwise. We constantly monitor and develop new ways to protect Veterans and VA data from threats.

We firmly enforce strong identity verification, including multi-factor authentications, ensuring that only authorized users can connect to VA’s information systems. To minimize risks across VA’s ecosystem — containing 1.5 million IT assets — VA’s Privacy Service consistently shares best practices for safeguarding VA and Veteran data to ensure all VA customers and stakeholders are doing their part to remain vigilant.

We’re focused on openness and accountability — owning up to challenges, mistakes, and blockers. In other words, we Embrace the Red. Every day, approximately 500 participants, including employees, partners, and vendors across the enterprise attend our daily Operational Standup meetings with the CIO and executive leaders to collectively review all recent and active major incidents. From natural disasters to vendor outages, these issues are inevitable, but the calls allow us to proactively work together to address issues before they snowball, acknowledging where we need support or a shift in strategy.

Interested in an inside look at what happens on OIT’s Daily Standups? Watch Rise to Resolve and see how we’re “embracing the red” to improve day-to-day operations and strengthen cross-team collaboration.

“Team members are encouraged to candidly acknowledge mistakes and work collaboratively towards solutions. This culture of embracing errors — what we call “embracing the red” — creates an environment where lessons learned from our missteps serve as catalysts for improvement. We want a forum where people are supported when they say ‘we screwed up’ instead of being castigated for doing so.”– VA CIO Kurt DelBene

Continue reading OIT’s Approach to Daily Standups as the CIO shares his first-hand perspective on what happens on these routine calls.

Our people are the foundation of our operations, and each one plays a vital role in improving Veterans’ lives. The VA Office of Information and Technology workforce includes nearly 8,000 employees,  each committed to using their skills and backgrounds to deliver an exceptional digital experience for VA stakeholders.​ Recognizing the need to attract and retain top IT talent, we’ve established a robust workforce development program that emphasizes competitive career pathways and nurtures an inclusive, accessible culture. And while we’ve made strides over the past year to make our organization a competitive place to work for the best and brightest among the IT industry, it is the commitment to our calling of a career in public service that is empowering our people to make a profound impact here at VA. Check out how we embraced People Excellence to deliver the high-quality services Veterans and VA value.

Closing the gap between the public and private sectors

We’re recruiting, training, developing, and retaining a diverse workforce dedicated to improving the Veteran experience. We do this by creating high-performance teams and fostering a culture of data-based decisions. To strengthen our IT workforce and be an IT employer of choice, we’ve championed competitive salaries through the introduction of Special Salary Rates (SSR). Over the past year, OIT continued to evaluate and improve the SSR to ensure employee compensation remains fair across our tech teams, while also making it attractive and competitive against private industry. The 2024 pay tables include four new locales and updated rates, reaffirming our commitment to recognize top talent. We will continue to support this key initiative to deliver an outstanding employee experience and be an IT employer of choice, which in turn, provides Veterans and their families with world-class benefits and services.

Fulfilling opportunities to serve the nation’s Veterans

In 2023, we announced the pilot of the Career Development Portal and in 2024, we’re excited to continue delivering on this investment to promote career growth and talent. The Career Development Portal provides employees with a collection of resources, including on-the-job trainings, role-specific videos, certifications, curated curriculums, and more. It’s a centralized hub for employees seeking to refine their skills or explore new career paths, including Technical, Business, and Leadership tracks — within OIT and even beyond the federal space.

Our People Readiness team continues to identify areas for improvement, and the team is currently focused on improving the Business track to include contract, finance, and program management positions; and the Technical track to support additional roles for AI and data science. We are actively collaborating with federal agencies to stay on the forefront of professional development and remain proactive in ensuring employees have access to relevant resources. From entry-level positions to experienced professionals, we’re helping our employees gain new skills and talents, and this Portal is just one of the ways we’ve invested in our workforce.