Page 24 - FCW, Nov/Dec 2016
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Management
colleagues to provide cost-effective and rapid benefits.
• Finding talented IT professionals is a challenge, and organizations should identify how best to build an effective IT workforce, including partnering with educational institu- tions to strengthen computer science and other engineering
disciplines.
Modernizing IT is about 2 business, not technology
Participants agreed that before focusing on a particular technology path, CIOs and other IT leaders should reach out to their business partners and develop shared objec- tives. Consensus should be crafted regarding IT’s value to the mission and the service quality in delivering that value for external and internal customers.
Within that context, CIOs can then develop transforma- tion plans for IT that tie to key organizational outcomes and not simply how fast or efficiently the technology operates. Similarly, CIOs can build a business case for modernization funding by identifying a way to measure return on invest- ment through metrics that are relevant to business needs.
Another key business strategy for modernization involves determining which technology should be delivered in a com- mon way across the agency or business as a shared service — with collective investment to ensure currency in shared infrastructure — and which applications should be owned locally in a bureau or operating division.
Effective organizations often make those decisions through a governance framework that balances the needs of individual units with the overall enterprise, where deci- sions are made by leaders from multiple offices across the agency or company.
Roundtable attendees noted that such an approach has proven successful in public and private enterprises. Indeed, industries that have very different uses cases (e.g., utilities, defense, sports, health care, homeland security) all provide a service to a population, have real-time requirements and can benefit from IT modernization that supports their busi- ness goals.
Within the context of a business guidepost for modern- ization, participants discussed the CIO’s responsibility to develop and lead an IT strategy that supports business outcomes. That strategy can be built from key elements that include:
• Implementing a bimodal architecture that recognizes that public- and private-sector enterprises will rely on exist- ing infrastructure and new innovation in parallel. Mission- critical functions often must continue on legacy systems, and CIOs must innovate accordingly.
• Identifying new pathways to modernize within the bimodal framework that use emerging technologies, includ-
ing cloud, analytics and cognitive computing.
• Creating agile environments to test new pathways by enabling experimentation and rapid iteration in a “sandbox” where developers can try different approaches before scal- ing up in a production setting that addresses business needs.
3 Mobile solutions can drive citizen engagement
Mobile platforms can enable modernization consistent with how users commonly access information via a variety of devices. Forum participants made several key recommenda- tions for capitalizing on mobile solutions, including:
• Looking to mobile as a path for citizen engagement by identifying the population that will interact with the organi- zation via mobile means, determining the most convenient way for those users to interact with the organization and deploying user-centered design to truly understand their needs.
• Addressing key critical success factors for implement- ing mobile solutions, including security (the need for secure authentication across mobile devices), culture (the need to determine mission uses for devices and how mobile appli- cations support mission uses in a way that the workforce supports) and governance (the need to drive a business and technical architecture that ties mobile solutions to program outcomes).
4 Cybersecurity insights must be actionable
The participants agreed that government and industry can no longer simply react to threats. Agencies and companies need the capacity to predict where threats will occur and then respond in real time to threats that change shape every hour of every day. The Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program provides a sound tool for agencies to monitor and address incidents. At the same time, responses must be executable in practical ways based on security built into solutions as the default setting so that when the default is compromised, enterprises can take immediate action.
Government and industry must work together to build partnerships that enable trusted information sharing and joint capability development. Neither sector will succeed by acting on its own. Similarly, government and industry must interact with members of the general public, who access their networks every day, by taking in ideas and promoting sound behaviors that limit vulnerabilities.
The research community also has a key role to play in identifying innovative solutions. Government organiza-
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