The FISMA Focus IPD

From: Washington Business Journal

by Alan Balutis*

In my last column, I lamented the federal government’s failure to follow through and fully implement the 1986 Information Technology Management Reform Act, arguing that after 16 years, it is time to start over. But then what?

First, think of how the world of government IT is different today – powerful new technologies, cloud computing, mobility, big data, ever present security problems, the blurring of lines between business and personal use, flat or declining budgets, virtualization, and on and on. We need a 21st century chief information officer to deal with these challenges in this disruptive age. And we need that CIO in a modern management structure. So let me note some framing thoughts for such a structure and such a CIO.

First, the issue is not really or solely the role of the CIO, but the lack of continuous management improvement across government; that generally involves IT because government is information intensive. The need is to align budgets, technology, people and acquisitions to achieve program goals, thus a holistic management approach. And senior management leadership continuity is essential to insure successful execution of both the agency mission as well as to make sustained and measurable improvement to both mission and operational performance.

That includes the introduction of new business processes, modern financial and business systems and other technology enabled advances. That should be done through the creation of a chief management officer within all major departments and agencies, to serve a 10-15 year term akin to that of the controller-general, the head of the Government Accountability Office. All management and administrative positions should report to the CMO – finance, budget, IT, acquisitions, human resources, information security, chief performance officers, the assistant secretary for administration, and so on – and all these positions should be filled from career SES ranks.

In another column, I can discuss these other senior positions; but let’s focus here on the role of the CIO.

Each CIO will report directly to the CMO and will assume five functions:

• Strategic use of technology, with primary responsibility for identifying leading practices that utilize IT to improve mission performance;
• Management and maintenance of the IT infrastructure;
• Identification, deployment, management, measurement and (if applicable) scaling new technologies and applications;
• Management of the Agency Transformation Fund, a proportion of the agency IT budget which is set aside for new starts; and,
• Information security.

Both the chief technology officer and the chief information security officer will report to the CIO.

Acknowledgement here to two pillars of the Federal IT establishment: Mark Forman and Paul Brubaker. Both have held major leadership roles in government and were key Hill staffers when the original ITMRA legislation was crafted and passed. They have played a major role in shaping these ideas over the last several months.

*Alan Balutis is a distinguished fellow and Director of Cisco‘s Internet Business Solutions Group and the former chief information officer of the Commerce Department, with more than 30 years’ experience in public service and industry.