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us from trying to do this. Having been in these roles, it looks like an excuse, and it doesn’t go over very well.”
One government IT executive agreed, adding that her agency had to borrow employees to craft the implementation plan. “We went to [the components] and said, ‘Here’s what we need to do. We will take whomever and whatever you could give us to get to the end zone in both August and November.’”
“It wasn’t ideal,” she added. “We wanted dedicated resources, but we worked around it. And it gave them skin in the game. They were there every week, working with our team.... By building the sausage, they could see what it took in order to get to success.”
“It is that partnership model and co-opting resources” that will be the key, a former CIO said. “I know it’s not easy, but that is the model that you have to start to drive for in order to get the resources.”
...all with an eye on the clock
Resources or no, most of the participants said 2016 would be critical — partly because of OMB’s deadlines but mainly because they wanted to make progress before a new administration arrives in January 2017.
“We have to do FITARA this year like our house is on fire,”
one CIO said. “Next year, when you’re in a transition, IT is not the first thing to think about. It’s going to take some time for people to understand.”
Another CIO, however, cautioned against overpromising. “FITARA is a three- to five-year runway, but no one wants to hear that,” he said. “A lot of us want to do the right thing. We’re looking for it, but we know that we’re not in for a sprint. We’re in for a marathon.”
There was some agreement on that point, with several par- ticipants saying many in government don’t believe rapid trans- formation is possible. “There’s been too much of, ‘Keep the old systems going because the investment to do a new system is so massive,’” one executive said. “‘Let’s not even do it until this thing is completely not workable.’”
Others around the table said CIOs had too often been the brake, and the community risked squandering FITARA’s poten- tial if IT leaders don’t move quickly.
One current CIO was particularly strident on the subject. “When we go to folks in leadership positions who are deliver- ing mission, they say, ‘I can’t wait five or 10 years to get that capability,’” the CIO said. “And what do they do then? They go on the side, and they create the capability. They say, ‘My CIO didn’t meet my needs.’”
Chartol said, and determine “five years later, is it doing what you thought it was doing?”Those investments are then mapped back to the taxonomy.
3. Key performance indicators. The goal is
to identify benchmarks
that should be adopted governmentwide. It’s a phased approach, Chartol said, and the group is working with a General Services Administration team that does benchmarking for metrics much broader than just IT.
But she said finding good key performance indicators for governmentwide IT could be
“the toughest nut to crack.”
4. Reports and data requirements. Agencies are already saddled with countless reporting requirements, and multiple CIOs at FCW’s Dec. 3 roundtable
discussion on FITARA implementation complained that OMB, the Government Accountability Office and agency inspectors general all have their own metrics for agency IT. OMB has asked
the working group to make recommendations for possible improvements on that front, Chartol said, but “one of our biggest hurdles is federal government participation — helping to surface all those requirements.”
It’s not just CIOs who are participating, however — more than 30 feds from a range of agencies have contributed. GSA has employees
working on each of the four
workstreams, Chartol said, and a small team from OMB is participating as well. “We have a couple finance folks engaged,” she said, “and would love to have a couple more.”
And the group has been actively recruiting to get acquisition experts engaged, “particularly around the taxonomy.”
On the industry side, executives
from Cask, Cisco, Deloitte, Capgemini Government Solutions, First American, Tanium and a number of other IT firms are taking part.
McKinney told FCW that he recently previewed the group’s work to date for the CIO Council and “got a lot of positive feedback” from the group. “Everyone is very anxious to see this succeed,” he said.
The group will meet again this month and aims to have the government IT
“I’ll define success when I can look my leadership
in the eye... and say I understand my costs.”
taxonomy ready by March. Then comes challenge of gathering and cleaning the necessary data.
the
Transportation Department CIO Richard McKinney
It’s a big project, McKinney said, but one worth tackling. “If we really want to have meaningful comparisons, we need to have ways of measuring our costs that are real,” he added. “That’s where I want to take FITARA.”
—Troy K. Schneider
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