The above article was published in the August 2005 edition of FEDTECH Magazine. The article describes a key management technique, Integration Management, and attempts to make the case for its use in critical Federal IT modernizations. The article is one in the series I write entitled "The Business of IT."

1. THE BUSINESS OF IT
Integration Management: The Missing Link BREAK IN THE CHAIN OF BEST PRACTICES
By Paul Wohlleben GRAT
Earned value INTE
ION
MA
management Project Capital planning Enterprise
M
uch has been written about a federal gov- Agencies increasingly must take an management and investment architecture
ernment that works better and costs less. enterprise view toward business proc- control
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In fact, that desired state has been the
key driver of management reform efforts
esses and IT. For one, agencies are
focusing their mission strategies on their
GEM ENT
by at least the last two presidents. key constituents, who in most cases are
Information technology is at the core citizens. The objective is to better serve The government has adopted some smart management practices. But to achieve an enterprise-driven IT environment, agencies need to add the intergration management discipline.
of these efforts and is expected to the public by making it easier to do
improve government performance. By business with the government and by since the passage of the Clinger-Cohen other push is the use of earned-value manage many projects individually
recognizing the role federal IT and CIOs making government more accessible. Act. The rate of change increased with management to measure progress, or the through development life cycles, but co-
must play in implementing systems crit- Secondly, agencies lack resources, the Bush administration’s rollout of the lack of it, in implementing IT projects. ordinating and managing common inte-
ical to improving performance and to and moving to a rational IT enterprise President’s Management Agenda and its Bush administration reforms have sig- gration points and system and program
correct long-standing problems in IT holds the promise of reducing develop- related IT management reforms. nificantly advanced the practice of IT interdependencies is a separate function.
resources management, the Office of ment and maintenance costs. Part of management. The development of a Fed- Almost by definition, this function
Management and Budget is pursuing an taking the enterprise view requires an The IT Connection eral Enterprise Architecture and the push must be established at the enterprise
aggressive program to reform agencies’ organization to create it—no easy task. A number of the reforms have focused on for agencies to develop organizational level. Integration management defines
IT management practices. Consider the effort and issues involved planning and managing IT projects to de- architectures has provided the foundation the target state using five work streams:
CIOs today are busy developing in developing enterprise architectures. liver better mission results. Several are es- for consolidating IT infrastructures and function, system, information, organiza-
visions of how IT will support missions With their EAs in hand, agencies are pecially relevant to challenges that CIOs broadening the use of common solutions. tion and communications, and integra-
and crafting modernization plans to developing plans to move to target face in implementing large, complex IT The result is a reduction in duplicative tion planning and support.
move to the target state. These modern- architectures. These plans result in a modernizations across enterprises. efforts, an increase in savings and a boost
ization programs will be expensive and prioritized list of projects that must be The first reform following Clinger- in interoperability. Better Road Map
hold significant implementation completed to achieve the target state. Cohen’s passage in 1996 emphasized cap- Capital planning and investment For each work stream, a set of work prod-
risks. Will the reforms that For agencies with extensive, distrib- ital planning and investment control. control, project management certifica- ucts documents the interrelationships be-
OMB is leading improve the uted IT infrastructures and hundreds of Initially, the government focused on more tion and earned-value management tween the initiatives and the target state.
ability of CIO organiza- legacy applications, this list is lengthy robust justification for IT projects— each contribute to project excellence, Integration management can also coordi-
tions to make the leap and complex. Also, to obtain funding, pinned on improved planning, defining but they cannot deliver the target state. nate contracting activities across multiple
to the target state? agencies must tie each project to an the benefits to be achieved, setting imple- In the complex federal IT environ- providers and ensure that IT governance
Let’s examine investment review and a budget proposal. mentation plans and accounting for risk. ment, CIOs need a discipline not just for clearly focuses on resolving issues that
the management The emphasis then shifted to control of designing and implementing individual could impair reaching the target state.
processes agen- The Intricacies projects during implementation. projects but for implementing multiple Integration management is a critical
new photo tk cies are using to Once they get funding, agencies must In the Bush administration’s second interdependent projects. And ultimately, element in modernizing IT in today’s
coordinate plan- simultaneously manage sometimes hun- term, OMB has provided stronger leader- they must roll out these projects with the complex federal environment. Without it,
ning and implemen- dreds of related projects. Because of sys- ship in this reform effort. Although capi- goal of reaching the target environments agencies will struggle to coordinate indi-
tation of IT projects to tems interdependencies, many of which tal planning remains a priority, in the past envisioned by their EAs—over a span of vidual improvement projects and legacy
determine their visions. spring from the enterprise concept of the focus was on integrating enterprise time where requirements and planning systems. By practicing this management
Although I see some focus build once and use many times, projects architectures with resource decisions. are constantly changing. discipline, agencies will improve their
on coordinating schedules need to be completed in sequence and on Two more narrow reform areas have What’s needed is the addition of inte- chances of harmonizing multiple mod-
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE BARRETT
across multiple projects, schedule to reach the target environment. emerged over the past few years. One is a gration management—the discipline of ernization projects successfully. F T
there’s been little effort to coor- It is quite common for multiple agen- strong push to train IT managers in proj- managing integration across multiple,
dinate the integration of cies, contractors and integrators to be part ect and program management skills and interdependent projects to deliver a tar-
Paul Wohlleben is a former
processes, shared data and sys- of a modernization, further complicating to certify their credentials. This recognizes get state architecture that supports
federal CIO and a partner at Grant
tems—all of which are critical to and challenging implementation efforts. the critical element that day-to-day leader- improved mission performance.
Thornton LLP. His column examines
complex modernization efforts. The state of federal IT management ship and management of IT investments The objective of integration manage-
key issues in managing IT in
This is a serious oversight. has been one of ongoing enhancement has in delivering promised benefits. The ment is to deliver the EA vision. Agencies
government organizations.
AUGUST 2005 FEDTECHMAGAZINE.com 13