InformationWeek

January 12, 1998

Federal CIOs Look Past Failures

By Edward Cone

est IT practices in the federal government: That may sound like an oxymoron, but it's actually the title of a report issued last October by the federal Chief Information Officers Council. The successes cited by the CIOs tend to be small and incremental, but the very existence of their council is a big improvement for government systems management.

Uncle Sam is the single largest purchaser of computers and computer-related equipment in the world, but he's been a terrible shopper and manager. The problems go way beyond the Federal Aviation Administration and well-publicized debacles like the multibillion-dollar meltdown at the Internal Revenue Service. "There are so many horror stories," says Senate investigator Don Mullinax. "We see programs where $40 million gets spent, or $90 million, and then they have to start over because they didn't know what they wante d to do."

According to the General Accounting Office's reports on government computing, the "High-Risk Series," taxpayers still see "poor returns" on the $145 billion appropriated for federal agencies for IT over the last six years.

The CIO Council is trying to change that. The group was created in August 1996 to give senior IT managers from various federal agencies a forum and sounding board for their concerns. Every federal agency is required to have a CIO under the IT Management Reform Act of 1996, also known as the Clinger-Cohen Act. (The FAA won an exemption and still does not have a true CIO.)

Longtime critics of federal systems management see the CIO Council, which meets monthly, as a move in the right direction. "The CIO Council is off the ground and making some progress," says Senate staffer Bill Greenwalt. "They've got the criteria in place for a capital planning process, which is a big step."

Return on investment, usually an alien concept for most federal agencies, is another focus of t he group. "Responsible management says that we should tell our owners-Congress and the taxpayers-that they're getting some value on the billions we spend on IT each year," says Alan Balutis, deputy CIO at the Commerce Department and chairman of the committee that wrote the Best Practices report. "We can help do the enterprise-level planning that was lacking in years past."

The Best Practices report, co-authored by the Industry Advisory Council, an IT industry group, includes case studies of successful projects. These include the Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar Web site, which lets companies file financial documents and provides data to investors. While most of the projects cost less than $150 million, even the good news must be taken in context: A medical-logistics system at the Defense Department is clicking, but the agency overall is still viewed as an IT disaster.

Stay Focused
Balutis says it's important to focus on the success stories, even if they pale in comparison to the bad n ews. "Just culling from our list of systems failures is like studying health care only through autopsies," he says. "You can't just look at the opposite side of failed practice and say it's a successful practice."

So credit the CIO Council and its members for turning the Washington tide. "Management is the most difficult component of the problems federal agencies face," says Greenwalt. "We have a long way to go."

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