The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has designated Quality Service Management Offices (QSMO) to facilitate mission delivery outcomes to effectively steward taxpayer dollars by providing improved services. OMB M-19-16 recognises shared services in alignment with the long-term vision of modernizing the federal government as set in the President’s Management Agenda (PMA). The memo outlines the benefits of shared services to increase the value of mission support services and solutions. Defining a new approach to shared services, OMB’s strategy leverages industry experience and lessons learned to reduce duplicative effort across agencies, elevate accountability, and improve shared services by providing a competitive set of solutions for agencies.

Currently established QSMOs include the authorities of Cybersecurity Services, Grant Management, and Core Financial Management. The QSMOs, managed in line with their core capabilities and domain expertise, are currently assigned to DHS CISA, HHS, and Treasury respectively. Their responsibilities include the establishment of government-wide QSMO Marketplaces offering vetted “best in class” solutions for technology and services within their authoritative field.

QSMO Marketplaces should present opportunities for innovation for agencies to evaluate all established solutions without intensive vetting at the organization level. Commercial solutions in QSMO Marketplaces should be vetted and aligned with the Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF) in five areas: Federal Business Lifecycles, Business Capabilities, Business Use Cases, Standard Data Elements, and Service Measures.

“The advent of QSMO Marketplaces pose a significant opportunity for innovation in government mission delivery,” said Mike Tocci, President of Paperless Innovations, Inc. “The QSMO application and evaluation process for non-core solutions should be revisited to enable COTS SaaS solution providers to have a meaningful opportunity to deliver cloud-first innovations against agency goals. Commercial SaaS solutions and services which have earned FedRAMP authorization have been proven to offer the best value for improving performance, customer satisfaction, and security for government operations.”

Delivering value is essential so that OMB may continue to enhance the QSMO program by adding additional high-performing mission support functions made available for agency-specific work.