New OMB tool attacks waste and inefficiency together

Agencies are getting a new tool to help them eliminate duplicative and inefficient IT projects while supporting other governmentwide initiatives at the same time.

U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel launched PortfolioStat with an announcement. It will help agencies evaluate the current maturity of their IT portfolio management process find wasteful and duplicative investments, he said.

A March 30 memorandum from VanRoekel and Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, explained that PortfolioStat will help boost current CIO-led capital planning and investment control processes, and move to shared solutions to get the most out of IT investments.

While another tool, TechStat, looks at IT performance at the specific project or investment level, PortfolioStat takes a more holistic approach and examines the whole portfolio to help identify and eliminate duplication and waste, the memo stated.

VanRoekel announced earlier this year that one of his high-priority items for 2012 included accelerating OMB-led TechStat reviews and broadening the TechStat model to the bureau level. PortfolioStat will also support the Shared First initiative and help agencies meet requirements in governmentwide undertakings on data center consolidation and cloud computing.

To support the PortfolioStat process, OMB is directing agencies to choose a lead for the initiative within 10 days and hold their first PortfolioStat session by July 31, 2012. Agencies also must submit plans to consolidate commodity IT and migrate at least two duplicative commodities IT services. Another requirement is that agencies detail their challenges and successes in a document and then submit it to OMB by Feb. 1, 2013.