The Challenge

The USDA’s Digital Infrastructure Services Center (DISC), part of the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), serves as a Shared-Service Provider (SSP) offering cloud-based IT services to USDA and other federal agencies. As DISC expanded its offerings and customer base, it faced mounting challenges in managing complex administrative, financial, and strategic operations:

• Service Fragmentation: USDA has experienced fragmented support across Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC), project management, acquisition, and human resources.
• Capability Restrictions: USDA has limited capacity to meet short- and long-term planning needs for both USDA and non-USDA customers.
• Oversight Improvements: The organization needs improved data governance, strategic planning, and performance tracking across multiple service areas.
• Manual and Disconnected Financial Processes: USDA’s current manual cost management and administrative tasks rely heavily on Microsoft (MS) Office based files (e.g., spreadsheets, Word tables). These disconnected technologies created inefficiencies, increased the risk of errors, and made it difficult to generate timely, accurate financial insights across the diverse USDA and non-USDA customer base.

Chevo’s Solution

Chevo is the prime contractor providing comprehensive business and administrative support services to USDA DISC across nine task areas.

Comprehensive CPIC Support: Our Team supports AgMAX updates, investment reviews, earned value management (EVM), and artifact development for key USDA initiatives like Intelligent Automation (IA) Center of Excellence (CoE) and Enterprise Hosting Services (EHS). We lead CPIC activities for two major IT investments using USDA's SaaS ServiceNow toolset, including business cases, acquisition plans, project charters, risk management plans, and operational analyses. We support monthly and annual OMB Business Case updates and investment oversight through Investment Review Boards.

• Impact: Through our efforts, we enable USDA to practice responsible financial stewardship and optimize DISC organizational efficiency, minimize risks and maximize returns throughout the investments' lifecycle, and maintain compliance with OMB A-11 CPIC requirements through comprehensive investment artifact development and Investment Review Board support.

Project and Program Management: We facilitate strategic planning, continuous improvement, and performance management across DISC's IT services leveraging the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) standards. Our team uses MS Project to develop and maintain an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) to manage DISC's portfolio of projects. We perform regular task updates, link project schedules, set baselines, and assign resources. Our team develops risk registers and issue lists to identify and document potential risks or issues with project implementation or task completion, perform impact assessments, and define mitigation strategies.

• Impact: We provide DISC leadership with a common operating picture to DISC stakeholders on task coordination and program metrics, enabling data-driven resource allocation, proactive risk management through transparent documentation, and predictable service delivery that supports mission-critical operations across USDA and partner agencies.

Business Relationship Management (BRM): Our team streamlines Interagency Agreement (IAA) processes and fosters stakeholder engagement. We support assigned BRMs entities to ensure customer needs are understood, documented, and supported. Chevo manages day-to-day customer project accounts and IAAs, identifying, detailing, and updating IAA Special Terms & Conditions, and coordinating with OCIO-COO on Accounts Receivable protocol and customer engagement.

• Impact: Our work has strengthened USDA's interagency partnerships and enabled seamless collaboration with federal partners by ensuring accurate agreement tracking, true-ups, and closure. We successfully developed account management plans aligned with DISC's business objectives and support continued partnership growth and mission delivery across agency boundaries.

Human Capital and Organizational Development: Our team facilitates HR service delivery using various IT systems and applications to manage high-volume, time-sensitive service requests, recurring reports, data calls, employee notifications, and inquiries for 200+ federal employees and 35 supervisory/managerial personnel. We support staffing, pay/leave, time and attendance, benefits, training, AgLearn online training system administration, telework, communications, reporting, research, and analysis. Our team develops and maintains the DISC's Human Capital Plan to prepare the current and future workforce for transformation, conducting IT workforce skills gap assessments, and collecting metrics on employee retention rate, time to hire, percentage of certified staff, and employee engagement.

• Impact: We enable federal HR staff to focus on strategic workforce planning, talent management, and policy development by managing high-volume, time-sensitive HR transactions and supporting the government's goals for process improvement, automation, and enhanced service delivery across DISC.

Acquisition Support: We manage high-volume, time-sensitive acquisition support requests. Our team provides a full range of pre-award and post-award contracting functions in support of IT and non-IT acquisitions. We maintain the Acquisition Management Branch procurement tracker, prepare reports for DISC management, maintain contract files, and perform contract administration on behalf of DISC IT operational units. Our team prepares contracting status reports for the ACIO and DISC management.

• Impact: Our support has led to reduced administrative burden and accelerated acquisition cycle times through comprehensive tracking and visibility. These administrative reductions allow federal staff to focus on strategic initiatives and mission-critical priorities while maintaining contract files, ensuring compliance with FAR and Agriculture Acquisition Regulation (AGAR) requirements, and supporting DISC procedures throughout the acquisition lifecycle.

Data Governance and Information Management: We develop SOPs, executive presentations, and templates for ServiceNow and Salesforce programs to standardize processes and improve data quality. We support the ServiceNow Program Maturity Program Manager and departments through SOP development. We develop Salesforce project templates such as customer questionnaires and process flows, assisting with USDA Trailblazer meeting coordination and logistics, and support content and organization of the CoPilot Portal.

• Impact: Through our efforts, USDA has strengthened interagency collaboration and effectively supported DISC's growing customer base of USDA and non-USDA customers through standardized, scalable processes that increase usability, enable continuous improvement of SaaS workflows, and position DISC to efficiently onboard new agencies during the period of performance.

Financial Support and Business Intelligence: We deliver dashboards, reports, and risk assessments to inform decision-making for DISC. We provide monthly and quarterly financial statements in accordance with Circular A-136 (Financial Reporting Requirements), as well as technical assistance in the performance of tasks such as preparation of the IAA, trial balances, reconciliations, and account analysis. Our team manages, analyzes, and reports users' actual and forecasted cloud usage requirements, providing regular reports, and generating both Activity Based Costs as well as usage-based invoices.

• Impact: We have enabled DISC leadership to make data-driven decisions with enhanced visibility into the IT portfolio, practice responsible financial stewardship. They can minimize risks while maximizing returns throughout the investment lifecycle through accurate, timely financial reporting and analysis that supports DISC's IT Cost Model, Pricing Calculator Workbook, and Service Catalog projects.

Chevo Services Performed

Integrated Program Support

• Portfolio Management
• Acquisition Management
• Performance Measurement
• Workforce Management
• Risk Management
• Compliance

Financial Transformation

• Financial Systems Modernization
• Budgeting/PPBE
• Financial Policy and Oversight
• Financial Reporting and Analysis

Mission Acceleration

• IT Governance