SOLVE. Many decisions are agency-wide, and project
managers cannot resolve CPIC issues at the individual investment level.
This
means that the agency must take a leadership role in addressing such
issues as:
- Mission
and Program Objectives
- Alignment
with
PMA
- Budget
Priorities
- E-Gov
Strategy
- Enterprise
Architecture
- Security
for
Infrastructure
- Acquisition
Strategy
- Accountability
for
PART Results.
MANAGE.
Success
is premeditated! Agencies must govern their IT resources
to
score well -- managing for successful
results in their budget submissions and the overall e-Government
scorecard. For example, Department of
Labor says it models its IT governance strategy upon "getting green."
(See Federal Computer Week, 12/13/2004.)
AUTOMATE.
The
work flows and processes for CPIC should
be relatively mature within an agency, and automation tools should help
project
and portfolio managers save time, access best practices, collaborate,
and make
pro-active management decisions. Moreover, information about IT
projects should
be in a unified database (rather than Exhibit 53 and 300 forms
processors) so
that the agency has immediate access to data for reviews and data calls
on a
continuous basis.
REVIEW.
Review
of investment performance needs to be
ongoing -- at least monthly, and there is absolutely no reason to wait
for
once-a-year budget reviews based on Exhibit 53s and 300s. With
automated tools, ongoing review is
possible without sentencing project/portfolio managers to a life of
paperwork
and special reports. Some of the suggestions for improved CPIC reviews
include:
- Track
all OMB scoring and scorecard issues.
- Break
down CPIC into manageable chunks. During one month, an agency could
focus on strategic alignment with business goals and performance
metrics/outcomes. Another month could deal with market research,
partnerships, and better alternatives. Upgraded acquisition strategy,
security, project risk management, etc., could also be appropriately
sequenced.
- Identify
and
track corrective actions.
- Stop
low-performing investments and recycle the money for better results.
TRANSFORM.
Think
big. Today's CPIC is about transforming
government, not just IT. As OMB's Clay Johnson III has said,
"E-Government
is transforming our agencies and producing results …." Governance
and Enterprise Architecture offer
pathways for implementing transformation:
- Making
government more accessible and convenient
- Streamlining
internal
business processes
- Improving
the
quality and availability of information
- Providing
agency
budget flexibility by reducing operating costs
In
some cases, the costs of
IT for E-Government could be borne by savings gained through
organizational and
workflow changes.
EMPOWER.
Agencies
invest substantially in IT human
resources, and it's crucial to make your entire team as productive as
possible.
Enterprise CPIC enables you to empower your overall team with:
- Access
to agency-wide best practices and standard text
- Collaboration
- Training
- Databases
that
provide re-usable information for all lifecycle requirements
- Automated
work
flow
- Ongoing
reviews and feedback.
REALLOCATE.
Most
of your money is probably tied up in the evaluate
phase of the
CPIC process
(steady-state investments). According to
the OMB Capital Programming Guide, "Ownership costs, such as
operations,
maintenance, including service contracts, and disposition, can easily
consume
as much as 80 % of the total life-cycle costs. Upon investigation, you
may be
able to:
- Recover
money by consolidating applications and systems.
- Move
money away from low-performing investments.
- Share
costs by partnering with other agencies.
- Transfer
costs
to other public or private organizations.
- Recover
money from agency budget by streamlining business operations.
LINK
OF THE MONTH
The PowerPoint briefing is
based on a keynote speech presented at a
Niku
Corporation web event that introduced its CPIC Accelerator.
CONTRACT WITH US FOR SMARTER SOLUTIONS
The P2C2 Group,
Inc. provides leading-edge
consulting services on the business side of federal information
technology. It works through multiple prime contractors. More
information about our services is at http://www.p2c2group.com/services.htm.
