OMB soon to outline e-gov project action items

A report exposing the real guts of the Office of Management and Budget’s 24 e-gov initiatives—outlining project specific goals, objectives and action items—is scheduled to be released by March 31, according to senior administration officials.OMB chief technology officer Norman Lorentz said at an Industry Advisory Council meeting yesterday that Mark Forman, OMB associate director for IT and e-gov, is meeting with every lead agency and going through each part of the final outline.“We have learned in the past that if you do not have proper ownership, charter and business case, you will not be successful,” he said. “This has to be done before you can invest in the projects.”In addition to the report, Lorentz said a working group led by Debra Stouffer, who is on detail from her job as Housing and Urban Development Department deputy CIO for IT reform, later this month will make three or four recommendations on the types of hardware or software that would be essential for each project.“The recommendations will tell us what is needed, whether it is a database or search engine or Web management software,” Lorentz said. “Then we will get down to the next level of architecture and choose two or three solutions that would work best for each project.”