Government Technology - May 2008 - (Page 34)

“Clearly we are spending dollars on IT, and what we have to do is make sure we’re looking at those dollars and we’re channeling those to the highestpriority projects.” Teri Takai, CIO, California In a Deloitte report, Cutting Fat, Adding Muscle, Eggers writes that states should “wring savings out of current governmentwide technology spending by optimizing IT operations and use it to invest in cost-cutting and revenue-producing information technology projects. This approach offers the best hope for reducing IT budgets without cutting into core IT services or impeding the ability of governments to continue to invest in IT projects that can help reduce the costs of government programs and business processes.” The report offers several examples of how to optimize IT. The underlying principle: Building an IT infrastructure that is tailored to the needs of the state as an enterprise enhances IT effectiveness, resulting in the ability to do more with the same or less. This principle is reflected by the efforts of Ross and Cummiskey. It’s also an approach Takai intends to continue in California. MAY_08 Takai said she is encouraged by the posture the state’s executive leadership has taken on IT. She said one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s objectives is to treat IT resources within the state as part of California’s critical infrastructure. It sounds so obvious, but those who are familiar with government IT know that moving people from an agencyspecific perspective to one that is enterprisewide is perhaps the biggest challenge a CIO will face. Like Ross in Missouri, Takai said some of her key strategies for helping California thrive in the long run involve committing the state to attracting and retaining a highquality IT work force. In addition, SOA looks to have an assured place in the state’s future. “There’s been a lot of great work done, started by Clark Kelso, on looking at improving the skills and making sure we have great succession planning for our skilled IT work force,” Takai said. “There’s been some great work done on enterprise architecture, some great work done around SOA. We have great IT leadership in the state. We need to come together and make sure we’re operating as a complete organization across the enterprise and we’re making the best technology decisions for the state.” ‘Crisitunity’ There is a partially inaccurate yet still compelling bit of wisdom people recall during times of trouble. They say the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity. Homer Simpson once incorrectly guessed the word to be “crisitunity.” The real word, wei ji, actually means something more like “uncertain moment,” but it’s hard to argue against the insight of the adage. In Minnesota, CIO Gopal Khanna has been through the ups and downs of state budgets and has ridden them all out. Khanna attributed part of his success to several “crisitunities” of his own. “Economic downturns should be seen as an opportunity to create efficiencies and economies now in the operation of our existing IT environment so that we can set the stage for wise development and business process transformation or renewal in good times,” he said. “The effective use of business process re-engineering tools, the minimizing of redundancies through consolidation, and the identification of new funding strategies for long-term infrastructure investments not only address our current economic environment, they will result in building a viable government operations infrastructure for the future.” Khanna said his state faces many of the same financial challenges others do, but he did not call Minnesota’s situation grim. Instead he said it’s a chance to crank up the creativity and take decisive action. Lean times, he said, present IT with challenges — and the ability to change for the better. Budget issues are “a challenge to keep value high for our customers in the services we deliver,” he said, “and an opportunity to make fundamental changes to how we manage IT as an enterprise to take advantage of contemporary trends in information management, such as shared systems, asset consolidation and centralized procurement. We are working to meet both the challenge and the opportunity.” Economies are cyclical and budgets will always have to deal with feast or famine. It is probably premature to label current conditions a famine, but things are certainly leaner in many places. These examples underscore the value that IT brings to states. With state leadership growing more aware of this value, hack-and-slash budget cuts may be a thing of the past, to be replaced by intelligent, thoughtful budget strategies that truly take advantage of the resources of an enterprise. 34 PHOTO BY GMP DIGITAL http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - May 2008

Government Technology - May 2008 Contents Point of View The Last Mile Big Picture On the Scene Four Questions for … Turning Over a New Leaf Crash Diet Budget Blues? Failing Grade? Running the Numbers The 311 Report High-Tech Corrections How It Works Spectrum Two Cents Products Personal Computing Signal: Noise

Government Technology - May 2008

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