The Federal CIO Council’s Federal Investment Management Community of Practice and ACT-IAC’s IT Management and Modernization Community of Interest have released an IT spending transparency maturity model in line with the Federal Data Strategy action plan and Technology Business Management (TBM) implementation.
The maturity model tool and an accompanying white paper released on September 30 integrates public and private sector best practices to guide agencies through adopting TBM methodology and standards. By turning qualitative activities into quantitative metrics, the new method is intended to help agencies measure progress and keep teams aligned on IT efforts. The effort is a part of action nine in the Federal Data Strategy that deals with improving financial management data standards.
Alongside the new maturity model, ACT-IAC also released a whitepaper on benchmarking TBM results. The second white paper documents a TBM proof of concept implemented by the Small Business Administration (SBA) providing a framework for how benchmarking can be a valuable analytical component as agencies implement TBM.
“It’s important for Federal agencies to continuously improve their understanding of their IT portfolios so they can make better investments,” said Daniel York, Director of IT Spending Transparency at the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Office of Government-wide Policy. “These two resources are designed to give agencies a more complete picture of the current and future states of their IT portfolios to inform sound, financial decision making,” he said.
TBM, when implemented effectively, standardizes IT spend to provide more clarity into investments. Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection praised TBM for improving agencywide communication earlier this year. GSA CIO David Shive and Government Accountability Office Director of IT and Cybersecurity Kevin Walsh went so far as to recommend TBM be added to the FITARA scorecard last month.
