IT Reform at the Department of Energy
Posted by Michael Locatis
As Chief Information Officer for the Department of Energy, my role is to bring together internal IT resources, National Laboratories and strategic partners inside and outside of the Department to promote agency-wide innovation and effective operations that provide tangible, positive high value outcomes for the nation. At the Department of Energy Office of the Chief Information Officer, we are “breaking the cycle and moving forward” by transforming the Department’s IT strategy to enable the mission through strategic governance, responsive IT, and risk-based cybersecurity.
The buy in at Energy rises to the highest levels of our organization as was evident when Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman spoke to the successes of cloud computing at the Department of Energy at a White House event in late April. The Deputy Secretary highlighted Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s move to a cloud based email and calendar application for over 5,000 users that will save Energy $1.5 – 2 million over the next five years. Deputy Secretary Poneman was amazed at the scalability and effective collaboration that was enabled through this technology while also saving taxpayer dollars. This is one of the reasons that we are looking at cloud technologies whenever it is possible.
We are actively executing the 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management as part of our IT Management efforts and a critical element to DOE mission success. The Department of Energy’s data center consolidation strategy focuses heavily on improving utilization and being cost efficient wherever closing down data centers is not an option. We have already closed one data center, and will be closing two more by the end of this calendar year.
We held our first Departmental TechStat at the end of March on the Department’s consolidated investment to implement a HSPD-12 identity management system. We have improved governance of the investment as a result of the TechStat by creating an Integrated Program Team (IPT) and hiring a dedicated project manager.
As co-chair of the CIO Council Management Best Practices Committee, I am personally committed to supporting the sharing of best practices across the Federal IT community. Improving Federal IT management requires not only knowing what doesn’t work but also identifying what does work and implementing it. I am excited to continue this work at the Department of Energy and throughout the Federal government as we execute the IT Reform initiatives beyond these first six months.
Michael Locatis is the Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Energy.
