Government Technology - September 2008 - (Page 27)

ment standards and ensures department adherence. But it doesn’t dictate methodologies or project management tools. “We’re trying to act as facilitators, rather than as directors of the process,” Lally said. Along with training resources, the state has several IT project management interest groups, some coordinated via the division and others through individual state agencies. These provide forums where project managers can trade tools and techniques and help one another with specific problems, Lally said. In the District of Columbia, OCTO borrowed a project management technique from a whole different discipline: financial investment. Kundra organized the district’s IT projects into five clusters: economic development, education, public safety, health care and government operations. Each cluster is assigned a manager to monitor projects as though they were stocks in a financial portfolio. “And then we rate those stocks,” Kundra said. “Do you buy, sell or hold?” Using a financial analysis system and enterprise project management software, portfolio managers MIKE LOCATIS track their projects daily, keeping tabs on spending and progress against milestones. In regular briefings, they describe how the “stocks” in their clusters are performing. The OCTO also frequently surveys the customers for whom it’s developing projects. “Instead of a PE [price to earnings] index, we have a happiness index, to see how happy the customers are,” Kundra said. give it to star achievers. “Everyone knows how the game is played, which is based purely on performance. If you don’t perform, there are consequences.” To ensure IT projects align with business needs, an IT investment board, composed of business leaders from relevant departments, oversees each cluster. “So it’s the business that’s really driving and saying these investments make sense or these investments don’t make sense,” Kundra said. “It’s not the technology folks making these decisions in a vacuum.” Governance Committees Although it hasn’t adopted the stock market model, Colorado’s Office of Information Technology also has organized the people who oversee the state’s IT projects into clusters. Called Executive Governance Committees (EGCs), these clusters represent departments with similar interests. The EGCs are: agriculture and natural resources; education; finance; health care and human services; personnel and labor; public safety; and transportation. Each month, the business and IT leaders who constitute each EGC meet to discuss project statuses, exchange ideas and provide guidance. “We’re able to share the strengths of knowledge across multiple departments and share the risk of managing these projects,” Locatis said. For example, the public safety EGC is working on a major system called a message switch, which first responders will use to find out whether a person, place or vehicle has ever The Results Are In. Public CIO Magazine’s Enterprise Systems Management Survey YOUR PEERS WEIGHED-IN ON AREAS VITAL TO MANAGING THEIR IT INFRASTRUCTURE. Access ﬁnal survey report and more applicable resources in our Enterprise Systems Management Resource Center. “We’re able to share the strengths of knowledge across multiple departments and share the risk of managing these projects.” Mike Locatis, CIO, Colorado The scrutiny’s aim is to let market forces determine which projects merit further support, which need more time to prove their worth and which should be killed before they waste more money. “You’re able to spot negative and positive trends much faster,” Kundra said. Based on the metrics, OCTO can take cash away from ineffective project teams and been involved in a crime. The EGC’s broad perspective helps keep this project on track. “Instead of just having the eyes of the Department of Public Safety, we’ve also got very experienced people from Corrections, Military, Veterans Affairs and Local Affairs weighing in,” Locatis said. Together they have solved several scope and contract issues. www.public-cio.com/esm 27 http://www.public-cio.com/esm http://www.public-cio.com/esm http://www.govtech.com

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

Government Technology - September 2008 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Up Close Fork in the Road On Time and On Target On the Record, Off the Charts Government’s Greatest Asset? Easy Access Finding the Money Security in the Wireless World The Case for Mobility Spectrum Products Two Cents signal:noise Digital Communities Contents A New Government Paradigm News is Now Transformation Web 2.0 Style Protecting Community Media Thinking Regionally Government at La-Z-Boy Speed

Government Technology - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.