Federal Manager's Daily Report

The General Accounting Office has published its information

technology investment management framework, an updated

version of a 2000 exposure draft providing a method for

evaluating and assessing how well an agency selects and

manages IT resources.

Built around a management approach emphasizing selection,

control and evaluation as described in the Clinger-Cohen

Act of 1996 which establishes statutory requirements for

IT management, the new IMIT takes into account agency

comments, GAO’s experiences in evaluating agency management

processes and the importance of enterprise architecture

in making IT investment decisions, according to GAO.

It said the ITIM framework breaks down IT management

investment assessments into five stages of maturity,

attainable once the requirements for each stage have been

fully institutionalized — and can be used as a tool for

organizational involvement.

For example, at stage one, agencies select investments in

an unstructured, ad hoc manner where project outcomes are

unpredictable and successes are not repeatable, yet the

agency is creating awareness of the investment process.

In the second stage, critical processes lay the foundation

for sound IT investments by helping the agency achieve

successful, predictable and repeatable investment controls.

Stage three represents a major step in maturity whereby

agencies move from project-centric processes to a portfolio

approach, evaluating potential investments by how well they

support agency missions, strategies and goals.

At stage four, an agency uses evaluation techniques to

improve IT investment and its portfolio, and is able to

eliminate problematic investments.

Finally, stage five means agencies benchmark their IT

investment processes relative to other exemplary

organizations and look for breakthrough information

technologies that will enable them to change and improve

their business performance.

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-394G