White House wants industry's help on IT managment

The Obama administration wants the government to use industry's successful processes for managing big information technology projects. The effort is part of the administration’s push to improve the government’s management of expensive IT projects.

The IT project review processes suggested to the White House by corporate leaders will be reviewed by the Federal Chief Information Officers Council and used to develop management tools that can be applied to projects governmentwide, the White House said in a recently released document on modernizing government. The administration’s plan to tailor industry's best practices to government needs stems from a meeting at the White House between senior government officials and corporate chief executives.

The White House convened that conference with 50 corporate leaders in January with the hope of generating fresh ideas to help modernize government and improve efficiency.

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Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said in a blog post on March 30 the administration is developing ways for industry and government managers to continue to interact and share related information.

According to the White House modernizing government document, released in Chopra’s post, the federal government’s IT budget last year was $76 billion and it has spent more than $500 billion during the past decade.

However, the government has “suffered a long series of disappointing returns on this IT spending,” the administration said. “Poor IT project choice and management can be blamed for much of this result.”

In addition to an immediate focus on IT program management, the administration also said it would focus on applying industry best practices to customer service.