[LINK] New ICT Framework for Federal Agencies

[Tom Worthington]

At 04:04  16/10/02, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>... Australian Government Use of Information and Communications 
>Technology: A New Governance and Investment Framework [PDF - 353] 
><http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/MAC/MAC_NOIE_No21.pdf>

What happened to the similar past strategies by NOIE's predecessors (OGO, 
OGIT, ...)? A suitable subtitle for the new framework might be: "those who 
refuse to look at history's mistakes can get away with repeating them".

I will look at how the Framework might be implemented using new 
technologies, in my talk for the Industry Outlook 2002 Conference 9 
November in Canberra <http://www.acs.org.au/act/events/io2002> and at 
Western  Sydney on 12th November 
<http://www.acs.org.au/nsw/westsyd/calendar.htm>. But here are some quick 
thoughts on governance:

There seems to be about a five year decentralise/centralize cycle with IT 
governance in the federal public service. The day I arrived at the Defence 
Department I attended a wake for the disbandment of the central IT 
organization, done to improve accountability and efficiency. A few years 
later IT was recentralised, again to improve accountability and efficiency. 
Perhaps the cycle is linked to the length of time a senior executive stays 
in a position or to how long it takes a project to fail? Each time IT 
projects start to go wrong, the bureaucracy can say: "we have a great new 
idea, we can fix the problems with those old projects by [de]centralising".

Perhaps we need the equivalent of the Capability Maturity Model, to assess 
how well IT is being managed in Federal Agencies:

>The Capability Maturity Model for Software describes the principles and 
>practices underlying software process maturity and is intended to help 
>software organizations improve the maturity of their software processes in 
>terms of an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, 
>disciplined software processes. The CMM is organized into five maturity 
>levels:
>
>1) Initial...
>2) Repeatable...
>3) Defined...
>4) Managed...
>5) Optimizing...
From: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.sum.html

Agencies could then be rated on the five point scale as to the maturity of 
their IT management.

ps: One subject the report is frank about is outsourcing:

>THE HUMAN ISSUES
>.... Recent experiences with government IT outsourcing have also 
>encouraged staff to move to
>the private sector, further reducing the ICT skill pool across the 
>Australian Public
>Service. ...

This seems to miss the point that outsourcing was the idea, or as Professor 
Klerphel put it <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0004/0285.html>:

>... outsourcing of Government IT would create  a pool of consultants with 
>government experience, who could be engaged. These people would cost 
>approximately four times the salaries of the government people they 
>replaced, but such talent is in short supply.

;-)


Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington@tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
Publications Director & Past President, Australian Computer Society

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