I thought of that passage last week – and its relevance to the Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) and CIOs in government – as I read Vivek Kundra’s July 28 Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies. It begins as follows: “Federal information technology (IT) projects too often cost more than they should, take longer than necessary to deploy, and deliver solutions that do not meet our business needs.” How familiar a refrain. How wonderfully it tracks to one from the “Computer Chaos” report crafted by Senator Cohen’s staff – the study that set the stage for the creation of CIOs in the Federal government:

 

“Regrettably, the Federal government does not have a sterling record in delivering quality IT solutions within acceptable cost and schedule. Familiar examples, such as the Federal Aviation Administration’s Advanced Automation System, the National Weather Service’s modernization program, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Tax System Modernization, are bleak reminders of IT programs that suffer multi-million dollar overruns, schedule slips measured in years, and dismal mission-related results.”

 

In 1996, such programs were called “runaway systems” (as they were dubbed by a Peat Marwick group). In 2010, they are called “high-risk IT projects.” In 1996, Senator Cohen and others on the Hill could say “The American public and the Congress get little in return for the $40 to $50 billion invested each year in IT in the Federal government.” In 2010, CIO Kundra and the now departed Peter Orszag use almost identical words, but the number is now $80 billion. 

 

Isn’t it time to pull the plug and admit we failed? What is the problem? Let me note a few:

 

·         Organizational Placement – The CIO was to report to the agency head. Today many remain buried under a CFO or Assistant Secretary

·         Politicized – The position is being filled more and more by political rather than career executives. We have tried to manage multi-year technology transformations under the guidance of political appointees with life spans that average 18 to 22 months

·         Authority – The list of Federal CIO responsibilities defined in the CCA is lengthy and impressive. But it doesn’t match the actual authorities most CIOs in government have. With only a few exceptions (i.e., Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency) they don’t control IT spending within their department or agency

 

Need more proof? A year and a half into the Obama administration, the CIO position at the Department of Defense, representing roughly half of that $80 billion in government IT spending noted above, remains unfilled. And the nomination of Teri Takai from California to fill the job has now been pulled pending a review by the Office of the Secretary of a report that (among other things) recommends eliminating the office, formally the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration.

 

I have studied – and practiced – management for years. One has a relatively short time to get reorganizations and new positions right; otherwise, the structure begins to calcify and can only be fixed by breaking it and starting over again. CIOs in the Federal government are ill-defined positions that haven’t worked well in the almost 15 years since they were created. The uneven organizational placement, the constant turnover, and the lack of authority have all combined to render the overall position of Chief Information Officer incapable of bringing about the change the Clinger-Cohen Act envisioned.   But CIOs in most private sector firms are key figures. So a better approach might be to follow their model and update the CCA to make the CIO position more explicitly about business transformation, with an IT or IRM Director keeping the lights on and the trains running underneath her/him.  But, currently, for CIOs in the Federal government – they really are “… most sincerely dead.”