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Survey: Federal CIOs Like TechStat Sessions, Want Changes to IT Dashboard

2 mins read


Photo: Stephen Orsillo

TechStat accountability sessions have been hailed in federal IT circles as a way to cut back on wasteful spending. The face-to-face meetings, which bring together all levels of stakeholders to make decisions on overbudget and behind-schedule projects rely on data captured by the IT Dashboard.

But that particular tool is getting a more skeptical assessment.

According to a new TechAmerica and Grant Thornton survey, agency IT officials’ evaluation of the federal IT Dashboard can be summed up as “Good idea! Needs work.”

“The key to its longevity will be how useful the Dashboard becomes to the public and to internal management,” the TechAmerica report states. The Dashboard is flawed, the report finds, because it relies on Exhibit 300/53 data, which “are not meant for public consumption and which are outdated.”

But there are positives, the report finds, including increasing visibility, “which motivates positive behavior among their managers,” the report finds, according to FierceGovernmentIT.

As for what changes agency CIOs would like to see to the TechStat process, proposed changes include involving contractors in the review sessions.

Now, the Office of Management and Budget recommends sessions include the CIO, the program and project manager, and a number of agency officials, Washington Technology reports.

“In some programs, we have 99 percent of the work being performed by contractors, and there are no contractors in the room,” said Norm Lorentz, director of Grant Thornton’s global public sector IT services. “That makes no sense. It did not make sense to the CIOs, either.”

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