Agencies touting IT reform at 18 months

Agencies published a slew of blog posts to the government’s CIO.gov Web page Tuesday detailing efforts to improve their information technology management 18 months after the largest IT reform initiative in decades.

As of 9 a.m., the Energy, Interior and Commerce departments had posted updates as had the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management.

The updates come several weeks after two smaller but significant reforms from federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s office: a Shared Services Strategy and a Digital Government Strategy, both published in May.

Interior, for example, described its recent contracts for two new shared services, a records management system and a departmentwide email system that was long delayed by a legal squabble between vendors supporting competitors Google and Microsoft. The Google vendor ultimately won the contract.

In addition, Interior has saved about $50 million by canceling projects that were over budget or underperforming, the post said, by following a process known as TechStat reviews. VanRoekel recently launched a TechStat offshoot for agencies’ full IT shops known as PortfolioStat.