The Business of IT - Facing Down the Budget Crisis

The Federal budget crisis is clearly affecting business as usual for all Federal agencies. Federal CIOs are dealing with the leading elements of the budget crisis - short-term funding and more active cross-government oversight of IT spending and projects. Federal CIOs are also in the vanguard of those addressing the Obama administration's IT reform initiative, which is largely focused on consolidation and large-project risk management.

While this crisis creates many difficulties for CIOs, in many ways IT offers the potential for addressing budget shortfalls. IT costs are steadily declining on a price/performance basis, and the CIOs have tremendous opportunity to use their IT dollars more effectively through consolidation and avoidance of duplication. Perhaps more importantly, IT also provides the capability to manage mission programs better by streamlining processes, incorporating new technologies and more fully engaging the citizenry in "self-service" delivery of government services.

Are you seeing the impacts of the budget crisis beginning to affect longer-term strategy? Are components of your agency beginning to work together more cooperatively? Is your senior leadership using the budget as a leverage to deliver meaningful change? Is your CIO organization equipped to play a bigger role in agency transformation?

http://www.slideshare.net/vtpw72/fed-tech-may-2011

The Business of IT - Payment Integrity

Attached below is a link to my latest column in FedTech Magazine on the subject of payment integrity.

Payment integrity and improper payments is a huge problem for the Federal government. In 2010, OMB estimates that Federal agencies released $125 billion in improper payments. There exist commercial analogs that mirror this problem and provide lessons and guidance on how to address it. Should government be doing more to adopt commercial best practices and technologies to reduce improper payments?

http://fedtechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=931

The Business of IT - The Customer Service Imperative

The Customer Service Imperative - Citizens have an awareness of what constitutes outstanding customer service and an expectation that government organizations can meet it.
What do you think? How is your organization positioned to help government with this trend? Will serving the public better help improve the public's image of government?

http://http://fedtechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=875

Informaton Pedigree

Attached below is a link to my latest column in FedTech Magazine on this subject. Key focuses are the potential, using IT, to move from "reactive" to "proactive" government, and the key role of data provenance/information pedigree to ensure proactive decisions are based on reliable data. I cite as examples the financial crisis and the BP spill as huge system failures that might be avoided.

What do you think of proactive government? When will the citizenry be ready for it? Can IT produce in such a key role? Can government deliver the high quality, reliable information required to make proactive government a reality? Do you see information pedigree as important?


http://fedtechmagazine.com/article.asp?item_id=815