Opt in to Keep Stirring IT Up

From time to time, CompTIA invites thought-leaders on IT issues to contribute to our blog. Steve O'Keeffe is a 20-year veteran of the IT industry and the founder of MeriTalk, an online community that hosts professional networking, thought leadership and focused events to drive the government IT dialogue.  Below is O'Keefe's guest blog post.

Excavating Pompeii, archeologists found three types of correspondence: love letters, shopping lists and IG reports on failing federal IT projects. But seriously folks, how long have we been trying to nail this jell-o to the wall? PMA, Watch Lists, Dashboards, TechStats… Who hasn’t scoffed at Uncle Sam’s IT management mayhem? Well, here’s your chance to get off the pine and into the game.

Enter new proposed legislation from Senators Carper (D-Del.), Collins (R-Mass.), Lieberman (ID-Conn.), and Brown (R-Mass.): The Information Technology Investment Act of 2011 - S.801. Our first MeriTalk Digital Markup gives you a sneak peek at the draft legislation so you can provide recommendations on how to make it better. Don’t be intimidated by the number of pages – double spaced and an easy read.

My Two Cents

Keeping my trap shut clearly isn’t a core competency, so I’ll start the bidding. Overall two thumbs up. Dig the carrot and stick at the end. Turning up the heat on the CIO. Terrific fidelity on gross deviance – 40 percent from the original baseline. $500,000 annual spending for major IT investment projects may be low – may drive too many critical projects to manage? Only significant concern, the exemptions. Need to ensure not to leave too many get-out-of-jail-free cards on the board.

Let’s face it, IT’s complicated. But, we certainly can’t give up on management. You have my two cents – what say we give the Senate a dollar’s worth of our thinking on change?

Opt in today to keep stirring IT up.