Treasury seeks better management through IT

Portfolio management, enterprise architecture and asset management form the basis of the Treasury Department's plan for providing better information technology support, the agency's chief information officer said this morning.

Those three pieces are critical for providing information that helps Treasury leaders oversee the department's investments and programs, CIO Drew Ladner said. He spoke this morning at a breakfast sponsored by market research company Input.

Asset management systems will identify what technology and capabilities are in place throughout the department, that information will populate the enterprise architecture's repository, and then officials will use that data to make investment decisions within the portfolio management system.

By working with all three systems, officials can ensure the information will be as current and as accurate as possible, making the decision process more efficient and potentially saving significant money through better investments, Ladner said.

"We're very excited about that — making portfolio management work and using relatively recent data," he said.

Many Treasury bureaus already have some form of these systems and practices in place, and at the department level, officials are working to bring all of these efforts to the same level, Ladner said. There is already one portfolio management pilot underway, and officials are examining the enterprise architecture and asset management systems in order to determine if any can be expanded, or at least bring them together so they can exchange data, he said.

"Getting the basics done will put us in a great position, particularly if we can use the data," he said.