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GCN Home > 07/05/04 issue

Safecom's critical point

By Richard W. Walker, GCN Staff

Watchdogs on the Hill pay more attention to how agency leaders are approaching projects that require collaboration

Project Safecom has ridden the management merry-go-round, to say the least.

One of the Office of Management and Budget’s 25 high-profile e-government projects, Safecom has had four different management teams under three different agencies since it was launched in 2002. None of those teams had put together a management structure that would enhance collaboration among partners.

The result? Very little progress toward its objective of achieving communications interoperability among first responders at all levels of government, the General Accounting Office concluded in an April report.

The Homeland Security Department team now running Safecom is laying the groundwork for interoperability by setting up a management structure that emphasizes collaboration with stakeholders, GAO said.

Meanwhile, the House has complicated matters by voting to prohibit the Interior and Energy departments, and the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service, from spending discretionary funds on Safecom or on the Disaster Management, E-Rulemaking and E-Training initiatives. The House included the prohibition in its Interior appropriations bill; the Senate’s version of the bill hadn’t taken shape as of press time. One reason the committee gave for the cuts was that DHS had already requested money for the Safecom and Disaster Management projects.

Safecom’s saga may be atypical, but it serves to illustrate that a stable, sturdy management structure is critical to effective cross-agency collaboration.

“Strong leadership and stable management are especially critical to transformational programs such as the OMB-sponsored e-government initiatives,” the GAO report said.

“As in so many other cases we see, the challenges are in the management, rather than the technology per se or the technical issues,” said Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at GAO, Congress’ investigative arm.

“Project Safecom is a very stark and convincing example of what can happen when management is unstable,” she said. “It had four management teams in 18 months to two years, and what happened was predictable. Each team spent its time determining what the objectives of the project would be, and by the time they started to make a little progress, there would be a new management team.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Management, IT Management



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