Homeland security IT projects parallel e-gov project development

Homeland security IT projects will take an approach similar to that of the Office of Management and Budget’s 24 approved e-gov initiatives, senior administration officials said today.Officials said they would ask the participating agencies to link the technology to their business processes.“Agencies that invest money in IT but don’t manage their mission well are wasting the IT investment,” one senior administration official said. “There were quite a few projects related to homeland security that were critical to the agency’s mission, which did not have business cases. Those business cases must be right for the projects to be successful.”Any homeland security project will be tied to two overriding performance measures: increasing response time and improving the quality of decision-making by officials.There will be a number of IT initiatives both among agencies and among local, state and federal entities, the administration official said. Many of these IT projects were outlined in President Bush’s 2003 budget proposal, but some projects will be done by evoking procedures outlined in the Clinger-Cohen Act, officials said.“We are looking at each area and identifying high-leverage IT initiatives,” another senior administration official said. “We want to provide better information quicker.”