Subscribe by RSS
Delivering Value through IT Reform
Since OMB released the 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management in December 2010, the Treasury Department has embraced the initiative's core goals of achieving operational efficiency and effectively managing large-scale IT programs.
To ensure that IT investments deliver value to the American people, Treasury has adopted a performance measurement approach. One component of that approach is a Tech Stat accountability session, an in-person, evidence-based review of an IT program with OMB and agency leadership. Tech Stat sessions review investments, their status, impact on performance measures, and opportunities for collaboration and shared services. One recent Tech Stat focused on current procurement-related platforms.
Treasury fulfills a broad spectrum of acquisitions for its bureaus and offices -- and for other agencies.
Interagency procurement cooperation provides important benefits, including leveraging economies of scale from shared resources. The Procurement Tech Stat provided Treasury with greater insight into its procurement pipeline with a view to identifying opportunities to improve the efficiency of asset and service procurement. By building on shared services already deployed for collaboration, document management, and business intelligence, Treasury is well positioned to enable greater insight and leverage of the procurement-related data we already generate.
Another major element of IT Reform is the move to cloud-based systems. As the first major agency to move its public facing website (treasury.gov) to a cloud provider, Treasury has embraced the cloud-based approach to delivering IT services. This service provides a flexible, scalable architecture for the Department's main website and five additional websites: Financial Stability; Making Home Affordable Program; Special Inspector General, TARP; Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration; and MyMoney.gov Financial Information.
Treasury has used commercial cloud opportunities in other areas as well. The Department, for example, collects Freedom of Information Act requests through a commercial cloud vendor and Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) deployed an Enterprise Resource Planning system through a managed cloud service. The managed cloud service made integrating the component systems that support BEP's manufacturing environment easier and faster.
Technology is ever shifting, however, and Treasury recognized the need to adopt emerging technologies and continue to promote efficiency. To help achieve that goal, moving forward, we will build an enterprise infrastructure that further consolidates existing data center locations, establishes a flexible architecture to support Treasury's expanding shared services, and makes use of existing data center space.
Treasury will continue to serve the American people by fostering the prudent use of IT resources and seeking cost effective and innovative IT solutions with efficiency, transparency, and integrity.
Robyn East is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Systems and Chief Information Officer at the Department of the Treasury.
