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FEDERAL
SECTOR REPORT
November 2005
IN THIS ISSUE
The
FEA and Budget Alignment
Links
of
the Month
Consulting
Services
Home
Page
(c) 2005 by the
P2C2 Group, Inc.
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Outstanding Consultants
Wanted
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PUTTING THE FEDERAL IN
EA
The federal budget will be
getting tighter in upcoming years, and the Federal Enterprise
Architecture
(FEA) offers a long-term solution. This can ultimately benefit agency
budgets, particularly true if you act now and get ahead of the
transition curve.
However,
many agencies will need to redirect their EA
activities to take advantage of the FEA, because they still don't get
it: Enterprise Architecture isn't just about
inventorying trees in the agency IT woods, removing deadwood, and
tidying up the brush. It's about mission support: structuring
information
technology to serve as a painless and cost-efficient environment for
performing necessary business functions that achieve measurable,
mission-driven
outcomes.
Many
of us forget to put the "F" in front of EA. The
United States Government is one enterprise, not a Holy Roman Empire of
semi-autonomous fiefdoms. Yet too often EA is lost in the woods of
agency-level stovepipe
solutions. Agencies tend to argue that their IT requirements are
unique, which
is seldom the case. With the exception of certain national security
systems, 80% of government electronics and information technology
spending is
generic, even though the COTS products may be combined somewhat
differently like LEGO™ components.
Much of today's EA activity
focuses on inventorying, organizing, and justifying the agency-level IT
assets; developing blueprints of
how to replace the most egregious legacy systems; and devising a more
consistent
schema that is peculiar to the agency. The problem with this approach
is that
agencies are developing dozens and dozens of EA solutions that
rationalize and
justify individual agency architectures … but may not necessarily fit
together in terms of a
coherent, simple, federal-wide architecture.
The truth is that there will
never be a single FEA until agencies dispense with the notion that
their
organizations are islands, where IT must be owned internally, and
solutions
must come from within.
Making IT a Utility
Actually, it would not be terrible if
agencies shared control of their information technology. We use
electricity for lights, water for toilets, and phones for voice
messages
without maintaining agency-level control over these utilities.
Today agency mission is the driver in federal
IT, and
proprietary technology matters less and less. Standards, such as XML
and associated specifications, are making IT platforms a commodity, as
Scott Berinato pointed out in a recent CIO magazine article, .Net, Web Services, and the End of the Vendor Era.
More pointedly, Karen Evans
has stated that "IT is a utility, and it's dependable, and it's
there." The Office of Management and Budget administrator for
e-government
and information technology has made it clear that IT should be seen as a
federal-wide enterprise, not something
revolving around individual agencies. Her comments were highlighted in Evans:
Use IT as a utility
in Federal Computer Week.
This line of thinking suggests that
agencies should be figuring out how to adopt and
align with a collaborative FEA, rather than construct their own EA
solution. This would
mean that:
- It does matter for stakeholders to have a
voice in how an IT utility is run to meet the needs of customer
agencies, taxpayers, and the public
- Service Level Agreements and Memoranda of
Understanding will be the lingua franca of FEA-driven IT
utilities... requiring thoughtful negotiation
- An agency can plug into an existing
resource in the federal enterprise without needing to replicate
(duplicate) those resources
- It makes no sense to fight over ownership
and control--because it's all owned by the United States Government ...
or outsourced by common consent to the private sector
- It doesn't matter who is running the
resource as long as it's available, reliable, and meets requirements.
The IT Utility Network
The federal IT utility won't
be like an monolithic electrical power plant. Rather, it will be like a
national power
grid--where many different plants are generating resources and
contributing to
the overall supply. That's exactly where federal IT is already
headed: Initiatives for
unified human resources, payroll, and financial systems are examples of
the
many emerging initiatives to put the most efficient solutions online in
the
federal IT grid.
An agency may operate one or
several of these powerhouse solutions, but the overall IT resources for
each
agency will depend on the federal-wide grid ... most of which will be
beyond the individual
agency's boundaries.
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What CIOs Need to Do
The job of the CIO is to
enable his or her agency management team achieve maximum bang for the
mission
at a justifiable IT cost. It doesn't really matter whether the results
are
gained through in-house IT resources or pulled like a rabbit out of a
hat.
Federal IT shops will help top management
with
process improvements that take advantage of an efficient IT
environment. And IT professionals will have more time to contribute to
the agency's business efficiency because they won't be stressed out
running a "do everything in-house with custom solutions" IT operation.
What is mandatory however is a strategy
for getting "from here to there." As mentioned above,
there are upfront costs for making the transition, and each agency will
need to
exhibit some "tough love" to negotiate a budgetary
transition. If successful, the agency can ultimately experience a
dramatic
decrease in IT and OTHER COSTS.
This article doesn't get
into it, but the biggest savings from the FEA revolution will be OTHER
COSTS, streamlining
business processes outside of the IT arena. In most organizations,
business
processes accumulate many quirks that slow down the
momentum of the organization in carrying out mission requirements.
Revisiting
procedures and streamlining them can literally save taxpayers billions
of
dollars.
What Congress Can Do
Our lawmakers need to streamline laws and
regulations.
Congress appends quirky process requirements and deadlines that impede
efficient operations and obstruct a consistent business architecture
for government. A
federal enterprise-wide IT utility requires an efficient, standardized
process.
If Representative Smith wants 60-volt electricity while Senator Jones
prefers
240-volts for another agency, there are unreasonable and unnecessary
inefficiencies. Yet clinkers like these appear everyday and result in
convoluted business processes that are difficult to support under a
unified FEA.
Contractors need to adopt generic,
industry-wide standards for IT and attain a very high CMM level of
proficiency in performance. This is already happening.
The largest IT companies
responsible for "back end" services are already becoming general
managers of
major assets in the IT utility grid. Large and mid-size firms will
continue to dominate markets for operating specialized niche IT assets.
Small
companies will play a support role, usually in functional specialty
areas. Quality, reliability, availability, measurable
performance, and cost controls will be paramount to market dominance.
Other companies will play on
the front-end--helping the government plan, acquire and evaluate the
emerging
utility-oriented IT environment. This is where the P2C2 Group is
positioned.
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Governance
Architecture
Portfolio
Management
Investment Control
Acquisition
Performance
Project
Management
Risk Management
Security
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LINKS OF THE MONTH
Just as a reminder, everyone should stay tuned
for new developments in Federal Enterprise Architecture.
As we publish this newsletter, for example, agencies are
preparing to respond to OMB's requirements for EA Assessment Framework
2.0.
This
is a great time to explore quality options for consulting services.
E-mail or
call to schedule a discussion with the P2C2 Group. Tell us more about
your
needs, and we can recommend a solution ... complete with a project
plan, a
team, and a cost estimate.
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CONTRACT VEHICLES
The P2C2 Group, Inc. is
widely accessible through world-class prime contractors, GSA schedules
and
other multiple-award contracts, and 8(a) firms. Call Jim Kendrick at
301-942-7985 to discuss vehicles appropriate to
your agency.
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HOME PAGE
The year 2005 has been a
joy. I've had the pleasure to work with smart associates and
interesting
clients. The P2C2 Group has grown as a company and has gained broadened
recognition. In addition, there has been
time to enjoy life with Elena, my kids, and some high-minded friends
such as
those in the accompanying photo.
Best
wishes,
Jim Kendrick
4101 Denfeld Avenue
Kensington, MD 20895
301-942-7985
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