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.