Best practices registry in development

Agencies soon will have a place to share their best practices and view other agencies’ ideas as the CIO Council is revamping its Web site.Dave Wennergren, Navy Department CIO and co-chairman of the council’s best practices committee, said the General Services Administration is updating the Web site to include among other things a best practices registry.“My vision of the Web site is for it to be a knowledge exchange,” Wennergren said at the E-Gov Solutions Forum conference in Washington. “I have a real liberal definition of what best practices mean. There are a lot of good ideas out there and we have to put them out there and let the users decide what works best for them.”The council will send a letter to agency CIOs asking for three best practices that would be useful for a wide audience to help populate the registry, Wennergren said Friday.The information in the registry could include white papers, surveys, agency-developed checklists or other tools. Wennergren said agencies may put in the entire best practices data or just a short description and contact information.“If I would do it, I might send my checklist of how to be net-centric and a CD-ROM tool to perform a self-assessment of your vulnerabilities,” he said. “This is a part of a massive campaign to root out best practices.”Ira Hobbs, Agriculture Department deputy CIO and co-chair of the IT Workforce committee, said by the end of June the council will detail a three-tiered rating system for project managers.The workforce committee also will send to federal IT workers an updated survey to determine their skills and competency levels.Hobbs said the target is to hear back from at least 60 percent of those surveyed. Last time, the council had a 40 percent response rate.