IT Investment Management
Published, March 27, 2008
The DON CIO provides the Department IT investment management guidance by providing oversight of capital planning, business case preparation and review, portfolio management and the DoD IT Portfolio Registry (DITPR)-DON.
Information technology investments can significantly improve organizational performance, but if made inadvisably or if they are not effectively managed, they can become risky, costly and unproductive mistakes. The goal of DON IT investment management is to select investments to deliver required functional capabilities, control their development and operations, manage risk and continually evaluate performance using standard criteria and repeatable processes.
IT investment capital planning includes defining a process for the selection, management and evaluation of DON IT investments based on the institutional processes of Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution System (PPBES), and Acquisition Management. The objective is to facilitate achievement of the DON’s mission and business objectives, balance potential benefits against costs and risk, align proposed investments with strategic goals, and measure performance and net benefit for dollars invested. This effort includes overseeing development of an IT investment strategy.
IT capital planning provides an integrated IT investment process for the continuous management of IT assets over their life cycles. IT funding decisions are made during the selection phase of the process. In the DON, the selection phase is synonymous with the PPBES process. The management and evaluation phases of the capital planning process are accomplished through the DON program acquisition process governed by
SECNAVINST 5000.2D: Implementation and Operation of the Defense Acquisition System and the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System.
The DON CIO coordinates the review and scoring of IT investment business cases during the annual DON budget review process. IT investment business case preparation and review includes development and maintenance of tools to assist DON program managers in preparing IT investment business cases (OMB Exhibit 300s), improving the quality of those business cases and defending them before higher authority.
The DON Exhibit 300 User Preparation and Self-Assessment (UPASS) Guide for Select and Native Programming Data Input-Information Technology (SnaP-IT) provides guidance to program and project managers on the completion of the Capital Asset Plan and Business Case in the DoD automated SNaP-IT system for required Major Automated Information Systems and Initiatives. The UPASS guide describes the content required for each question and provides links to applicable policy and procedural documents both internal and external to the DON.
IT investment portfolio management includes the process of obtaining Business Management Modernization Program (BMMP) "certifications" and performing annual reviews of IT business systems' developments/modernizations performed in accordance with 10 U.S.C. 2222 (as added by Section 332 of the FY 2005 NDAA). That process within the DON ensures that the system and its modernization comply with the DoD Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA) and all IM/IT policies (e.g., FISMA, Privacy). It also ensures that a solid business case exists for the investment before the development/modernization is forwarded to the applicable OSD Investment Review Board for certification and, subsequently, to the Defense Business Systems Management Committee (DBSMC) for approval. The DON CIO, as the DON Pre-Certification Authority (PCA), is the final DON approval authority for IT business system investments that require certification/approval by the IRBs and DBSMC.
The DON CIO also coordinates the DON reporting requirement to achieve the President's Management Agenda objective of improving the Federal Government's management and performance. The DON CIO provides guidance and coordination for the DON utilization of the President's Expanding Electronic Government initiative including Lines of Business and SmartBUY.
Further, the DON CIO develops strategies to align DON initiatives to achieve greater efficiencies and avoid duplicative investments. This involves interfacing with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps and DoD to map out a strategy for DoD utilization and alignment of core functions to the E-Gov initiatives. The DON CIO develops a process to coordinate reporting requirements to effectively achieve E-Gov compliance.