Page 39 - FCW, Sept/Oct 2018

those policies.”
Y
MY
Dave Powner, former director of IT management issues
CY
ment from the private sector expect to have responsibility and decision-making authority. K
“You want to be at the top making decisions, and you believe in the mission and you really want to make a difference,” he said.
In order to do that, agency executives and their CIOs must learn to collaborate, Klopp said.
“In the case of IT modernization and doing the things we need to do, I think that together the CIOs and the leaders of these things need to step up and put together coherent plans,” he added. CIOs can earn the confidence of agency leaders “if you can deliver wins.”
In their evaluation, GAO auditors noted that 60 percent of agency CIOs stay in the job for less than three years. Powner said the short tenure of federal CIOs and the change in strategies that accompany a change in leader- ship are a “big root cause of the problem.”
Klopp, who spent about two years at SSA, said the best thing CIOs can do in their limited time at an agency is prioritize a few projects and create enough momentum to move them forward toward success, even if the CIOs aren’t there long enough to see the projects through to completion. n
Derek B. Johnson contributed reporting to this article.
at GAO, pointed out that executives who come to govern-
CMY
CIS_CYBER_HalfPage_Ad copy.pdf
1 7/24/18
5:15 PM
Agencies fared poorly, however, on IT investment management, strategic planning and the workforce. Not one had fully implemented a policy in any of those areas.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who played a key role in passing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act four years ago and is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Gov- ernment Operations Subcommittee, said agencies’ reluctance to fully empower CIOs “hurts IT modern- ization and runs contrary to the goals of FITARA.”
“A chief CIO must report to the head of the agency, and if we have to, we’ll write that into law,” he added.
Rob Klopp, former CIO at the Social Security Adminis-
tration, said he does not believe legislation — or the lack
thereof — is the problem. “I think the issue has less to
do with the fact the policies aren’t in place and more to
do with the people...doing business the same old, same
old,” he added. “I think it’s more of a leadership issue
C M
Klopp, who noted that FITARA “is really relatively new, and not everyone has completely reorganized arounCdM
Protecting your network and data from the latest cyber threats, means leveraging the latest threat intelligence along with intelligent tools to secure against the likeliest threats.
than a policy issue.”
Building relationships among leaders takes time, said
Read our white paper on the role of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity.
PREPARE PROTECT PROSPER
chameleonis.com
September/October 2018 FCW.COM 31
DMITRY GUZHANIN/SHUTTERSTOCK