Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s IT Dashboard marks one year; Unisys Federal’s Ted Davies keeps IT projects “in the green”

A year ago, this month, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s Federal IT Dashboard was launched — and with it, a call for greater transparency for both government leaders and contractors to deliver IT projects on time and on budget. One company that has risen to the challenge is Unisys Federal Systems. It’s something that Ted Davies, the federal unit’s president, speaks candidly about. “A few years ago, we had a handful of projects that we were having some issues with,” says Davies.

“Even though it was a small percentage,” he says, “it really hurt our organization.” Today’s Federal IT Dashboard tells a dramatically different story: Of the contracts listed on the Dashboard for which Unisys is identified as the prime contractor, all of them — yes, all — are in the green.

Delivery success extends beyond a green designation on the dashboard. Case in point: the Customs and Border Protection’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, a border security solution supported by Unisys as the prime contractor, won several top  awards this year, including the General Services Administration’s IRMCO Award and the Excellence.Gov Award from the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council.

So, what’s made these breakthroughs possible? A series of measures that Davies and his team have implemented since he took on the role of federal unit president in October 2008. “We’ve had strong growth and profitability growth in the last few years and we’re going to be successful this year,” says Davies.

IT Dashboard: Three steps to green

Unisys Federal’s support of IT Dashboard green contracts is a result of three measures, says Davies. “By leveraging successes across the organization, by offering consistent service delivery, and by focusing on the energy of the people, we’re moving in the right direction,” says Davies.

1.) Leveraging successes across the organization. Unisys Federal’s growth and profitability improvements reflect recent improvements throughout the company: In the company’s most recent earnings announcement, Unisys CEO Ed Coleman announced that operating profit nearly quadrupled year-over-year. That is a result of Coleman’s work shoring up what have since become the company’s four areas of strength: application modernization and outsourcing; end user support and outsourcing; data center transformation and outsourcing; and security solutions.

“We’re a global IT services company — our ability to leverage from our base is really important,” says Davies. Which is why his team established a Horizontal Services Segment. “We now have a better way to leverage our company’s expertise across the board,” says Davies. In addition to repurposing expertise from one federal customer to another, the federal team can tap the overall corporation’s strengths. “We built risk management frameworks and solutions for financial industry clients in the US, Europe an Australia for example, that we can federalize and adapt for our marketplace,” says Davies.

2.) Standardized delivery. “Our ability to make sure that our clients are successful and that our projects are on track is critical,” says Davies. That’s where standardized delivery comes in, as well as a renewed focus on Unisys employees. “We’ve really focused on getting our people and our processes accredited … we’re linking the two so we get standardized delivery,” says Davies. Along the way, the unit has more than doubled the number of certified program managers and security professionals in several key accreditation areas.

Last year, Unisys Federal received ISO 20000 accreditation for its infrastructure and data center service offerings — one of the few federal contractors currently with that distinction. In addition, the company has ISO 27001 accreditation for its federal security operations centers. More recently, it has significantly expanded its CMMI 3 accreditation. (Part of the federal unit was evaluated as CMMI 3 three years ago, but the 2010 evaluation achieved accreditation for the broader federal organization.) “The current accreditation is much deeper into the organization than we have ever had before around CMMI,” says Davies.

3.) Building a consistent culture. “As soon as I took this job, I made it almost a daily mantra with folks, ‘Build a consistent culture here,’” says Davies. That culture is based upon four tenets: Focus on people, performance, confidence and participation. A key step in making each possible is Unisys Federal’s People Initiative’s Board. “We’re going to invest in our people and have them be successful … because then we will be successful,” says Davies, who serves as board chair.

The board consists of leaders from across the federal organization. A variety of different groups make up the board, each focused on various aspects of developing leadership and solid teams. “We have one that is the ‘career path group,’” says Davies. “It identifies how to take our folks from early in their career all the way through management and leadership,” he says. This group oversees the leadership accelerator program or LEAP. “We put some of our high-flyers in this intense program to gives them the skills, information, and tools to be really successful,” says Davies.

Another part of the board focuses on rewards and recognition. “We have a group that focuses on innovative new ways to both recognize and reward people who are doing a great job,” says Davies. Community is another important element. Last year, Unisys Federal launched a group, U-Give, an online channel for federal business employees to sponsor charitable organization events and also recruit colleagues to support the cause. “All of that builds a spirit of community where we’re working together and giving people an idea of how to give something back while moving their careers forward,” says Davies.

Leveraging success. Standardizing delivery. Building a consistent culture. It’s all part of that overarching goal: to stay innovative in the federal IT space. And keep projects that Unisys supports “in the green.”

UP CLOSE: Ted Davies

Current: President, Unisys Federal Systems

What he’s reading: “The two books I go back to are First, break all the rules and Good to Great — I think we’re moving toward being a great company by following some of the principles in there,” says Davies.

Personal: “I’ve got two kids, college and high school age. I’ve always been very active with them. I’m active with sports — running and biking. I’m also active in the community. I’m involved with the National Kidney Foundation, and I’m on the board of the Lupus Foundation of America – DC/MD/VA Chapter,” says Davies.

Posted by Lisa Singh on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010. Filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry