Highlights of Forman's two-plus years as the Bush administration's e-gov champion
In one of his first public appearances after joining the Bush administration in June 2001, Mark Forman asked a rhetorical question: Does the federal government spend too much money on information technology? During the past two years, he has championed various efforts to improve the government's use and management of IT.
His resume includes:
* Selecting 24 marquee e-government initiatives and pushing agencies to develop them in collaboration.
* Requiring agencies to submit business cases as part of their requests for IT funding — and threatening to withhold money if the cases are missing or inadequate.
* Developing a federal enterprise architecture — defining the relationships between a basic technology infrastructure and an agency's mission — and using that blueprint to identify areas where agencies could save money by eliminating redundant systems.
* Promoting the concept of a component-based architecture, in which technology that works well at one agency is adapted for use at another.
* Raising awareness about the dearth of trained project managers.
NEXT STORY: GAO to study foreign IT outsourcing