“Federal Inspectors General have the crucial task of agency oversight, often handling that job for large agencies while operating on relatively small budgets. To keep up with their responsibilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IG offices have had to leverage new technologies – and old technologies in new ways – over the past year-plus, IG officials explained today…” “With all eyes on USPS for the 2020 Presidential election, the agency CIO developed an Election Mail application in three days that could be used on both mobile and web browsers to streamline data collection of how processing facilities and delivery units were handling election materials in real-time. This enabled the agency to keep up with oversight duties while limiting the amount of travel…” “Overall, the election mail app was pushed out in about a week, Alana Daly, a program analyst at USPS OIG’s Network Processing Directorate, estimated. The tool was then provided to about 500 team members, allowing them to complete over 2,000 observations at USPS facilities leading up to, and during, the week of the 2020 Presidential election. While the quick turnaround allowed USPS OIG to get operational quickly, Daly said they would not want to have to replicate the process. The type of application is replicable for other functions though, and she offered some ideas that would make the next process smoother. ‘I wouldn’t want to try to build in three days again, or over, and I don’t think anyone loves that. But I think just the biggest thing was … even more preparation at the beginning,’ Daly said. ‘So I think time was probably the biggest factor of just building it, and having everything prepped and ready before we actually started implementation.’…” Read the full article here. Source: Fed OIGs Leveraging Technology to Adjust to Pandemic Landscape – By Lamar Johnson, By April 14, 2021. MeriTalk.