Minh-Hai Tran-Lam: Bringing the big picture into focus

Minh-Hai Tran-Lam has a rare view of government IT policy from her perch at the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of E-Government and IT. As a policy analyst, she’s in charge of overseeing the overall IT investment portfolio and governmentwide initiatives for vendor management, electronic health records and several other areas. Since joining OMB in 2010, she has helped preside over wholesale changes to the way agencies manage their IT investments and disseminate information.

A look at little-known agency experts who are pushing critical broad-based initiatives, plus other leaders whose influence bears watching.

"There has been a big shift in this administration from paper-based reporting to releasing information electronically," she told FCW. "Through the IT Dashboard and USASpending, we are moving a lot of valuable information online and releasing it on a much more regular basis."

An ongoing challenge has been to find ways to make the public aware of these efforts. "In order to get people to understand what open government means," Tran-Lam said, "you have to show them how it can impact their lives."

Behind the scenes, the PortfolioStat review process at OMB is changing the culture of federal IT by helping agency leaders recognize "that IT can’t be managed in a silo, but rather it has to be an integral part of how agencies do their business," she said. The investment reviews are "creating a culture of accountability and forcing a focus on outcomes over process."