The line on LOB: Panel breaks down the fundamentals, and the payoff, of Lines of Business
The Association for Federal
Information Resources Management and GCN last month hosted a roundtable
discussion of the Office of Management and Budget's Lines of Business
initiatives. The 10 participants in the roundtable generally agreed that Lines
of Business can work, while acknowledging that a lot of challenges lie ahead.
What follows is an
abbreviated version of the discussion. To read more, go to www.gcn.com and enter
428 into the GCN.com/search box.
Tom Temin, editor in chief
for GCN and Washington Technology, moderated the discussion.
The participants:
Scott Charbo, Agriculture
Department CIO
Linda Cureton, Alcohol,
Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives Bureau deputy CIO
Larry Gross, Treasury
Department acting CIO for E-Government
Charles Havekost, Health
and Human Services CIO
Randolph Hite, Government
Accountability Office director for IT Architecture and Systems Issues
Mark Krzysko, Defense
Department deputy director for Electronic Business, Defense Procurement and
Acquisition Policy
Tarrazia Marton,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement CIO
Price Roe, Justice
Department special assistant to the CIO
John Sindelar, General
Services Administration deputy associate administrator, Office of Governmentwide
Policy
Melissa Wojciak, House
Government Reform Committee staff director.
TEMIN: Well, Tarrazia
and I were discussing, when we came in, that there is not a lot known about how
Lines of Business will be accepted. It is a good thing in the eyes of OMB. So
what's your perspective on where we actually stand with picking Lines of
Business Centers of Excellence and moving toward them?
Price, I'm going to call on you.
ROE: Yes, I think we
know it's real because we are held accountable by OMB. One of the greatest
challenges for us'I say "us" meaning
the federal community'has been looking at the
volume and trying to figure out to what extent there is wheat and chaff as it
relates to an individual agency's mission.
It's the heartburn that sometimes accompanies these very good
initiatives.
So they are all real but there's going to be more'some
are going to have a greater alignment with the mission and, therefore, greater
focus and, therefore, receive more resources from within the department. And not
all are created equal in terms of what we are able to spend our time on.
TEMIN: You said that
there is a large number'you mean of mandates?
ROE: Yes, but also,
there is a large number of Quicksilver initiatives. Look at E-Payroll; that is a
great success story. We have a lot of movement on E-Authentication. E-Travel,
there are a lot of things.
At the same time, we have to look at the reconciliation with the
existing initiatives. Case management is something that is a natural for us at
the Department of Justice. However, we had a previous financial management
system, investment.
And there was a lot of back and forth on, you know, "Well,
are we going to shut this down and go with another program? Or are we going to
work closely with OMB to designate this as a
Center
of
Excellence
and therefore be a service provider, one of the service providers for the rest
of the federal community?" And we ended up going with the latter.
You have to balance your parochial departmental interests with
the larger federal picture.
And that's where OMB is very good at kind of grabbing by the
scruff of the neck and saying, "Look around," and they have the
ability to do that. And we feel the love sometimes.
GROSS: I think one of
the things that Price brings up is that this is no longer just an IT project. It
is forcing people to make business decisions on how their organization will run
today and years down the road.
MARTIN: I think there
are a lot of world drivers that are pushing us toward this goal. For example,
9/11 I think was a wake-up call for all of us, but when you look horizontally
across the government, there is a need to share data.
But at DHS, our big challenge is to share the same data about
the people that may have an effect on our nation's safety. And I think a large
part of what drives case management is how we will share that data. We call it
identity management. Who is in the country? What are they doing? What is their
status, etc.?
So I think a large part of what OMB is trying to do with this
initiative is to force us to think horizontally, versus stovepipe. And I think
that's a huge driver for where we need to go as a country.
SINDELAR: You know,
the government tends to sacrifice the long term for the short term. And what we
are trying to do now is take the long-term outlook and build a shared-service
environment, starting with the 24 e-Gov initiatives and moving towards the Line
of Business effort.
I would say that the real driving force, the technical driver
behind this, is through the enterprise architecture.
And Larry is exactly right that this is not about IT.
This is about business transformation, how the government does business.
It's been a long haul to get the chief financial officers' community
involved, the acquisition officers involved in this as much as the CIOs because,
in fact, they all have to be at the table.
HAVEKOST: But the
realization that people need to have is that "systems" embody
processes and embody policies. And if we have hundreds of systems in the same
business area, we have embodied processes and embodied policies slightly
different hundreds of times.
And that's not a good way to do business, and that's not a
particularly transparent way to do business. But the Lines of Business give us a
way to have systems that embody process and policy a fewer number of times
across the government.
It makes the process more transparent. It makes us more nimble
about being able to update policies and processes, because they only need to be
updated in a very few number of systems as opposed to having some negotiation
about how to embody those processes and policies across hundreds of systems that
then would need to be updated.
SINDELAR: In the Line
of Business effort, the goal is to alleviate the requirements for every agency
to stand up their own financial management system, their own HR system, and the
business processes related to that over time, and allow the agencies to focus on
their mission.
CURETON: It think of
the Jack Walsh model at General Electric Co., what he did with GE. What is the
business of GE? What is their main business? What should they get out of? And I
think this makes a very sensible way for departments to focus on what their
missions are and to divest themselves from some of the ancillary but very
important activities that support the mission.
TEMIN: I just want to
follow up on what Charlie said about duplication and with it the possibility of
the policies and processes being slightly different on all of those systems.
Maybe Randy can answer this: Should every agency have the same policies and
processes?
And if not, then do the LOB service providers simply become
time-share operations running everybody's applications? Does that make sense?
HAVEKOST: I'll jump
in there. That's a very reasonable discussion in this space. There are a lot of
processes that people perceive as policies just because they've been the process
for so long. It compels us to take a look at these things and say, "Are
these real? Or are these just vestiges of how we've done business for so
long?"
Are we in such a rut that we can't see that there may be a more
common, a more standardized way of doing business that gets us to the same end
and gets us there in a way that is more transparent, that is more understandable
to external entities, and it also can use systems that are used across?
GROSS: We were
looking at an approach where we were going to allow you to analyze your business
and make a determination of: At what point in time does it make sense to adopt
this business process here, from the
Center
of
Excellence
? And what part of that
Center
of
Excellence
do you want to utilize within your organization?
So it's not a one-size-fits-all. It does allow you, as a
business owner, to decide what fits your organizational needs.
CURETON: I think that there are probably some mission-specific
policies at play, and there are probably some specific laws. But there's a large
amount of that which is just past practice or just how we always do things. And
so think the real challenge is to be
able to balance between the two and not sacrificing one for the other in looking
at the long term versus the short term.
KRZYSKO: The policy
at the top level, what we have institutionalized in organizations are generally
tribal customs, the policy interpretation at lower levels implemented through IT
infrastructures that ultimately become the bane of our existence. The policy has
been clear.
Now, you had the premise, Tom, that what happens is the policy
goes to automation. Policy is not a requirements document for an instance of IT.
And in many cases, the policy gives you broad-level latitude for implementation.
In the different organizations and their local implementations, there is
certainly uniqueness, but it's generally not from a policy perspective. When you
get to the requirements document or the requirements specs as we would do it in
a common business process, it becomes more difficult then because many people
implement that based upon their view of the world, not from the policy guides.
We can agree that we have a policy framework to worry about,
whether it be the financial framework, whether it be the Joint Financial
Management Improvement Program, whether it be the Federal Acquisition Regulation
and, in our case, the Defense FAR, because we do have some specific laws passed
for the Defense Department.
But fundamentally, you can find a core, an 80 percent solution,
that you can implement, but you have to have very strong leadership to bring
that together.
HAVEKOST: Can I offer
another example? This is when I was running Grants.gov. Some agencies require or
recommend a letter of intent that you intend to apply for a grant. And in
general, that is not part of regulation; it's part of how they do business.
And when it comes right down to it, most of the places that
require that, they don't actually require it; they recommend a letter of intent.
And the reason they recommend it is so that they can estimate how many
applications are going to come in, so they can estimate their workload at the
application due date. But there are other ways in the electronic world to figure
out how many. How many times has the application package been downloaded is a
way to estimate what the interest is. It takes quite an epiphany for people to
say, "Well, maybe we don't need a letter of intent."
TEMIN: We've talked
about what to preserve of investments that you've already made as an agency and
what to let go of. Sometimes, as in the case of the FBI, they let go of $100
million-and-some just because it didn't work.
In the other case, the financial system, the investment was
already made, and it turned out to be a service provider for others.
So at what point can agencies feel safe in just simply letting
go of sunk costs, because there is a Line of Business provider that might be
able to do that function better, and not get zinged for it?
SINDELAR: I've been
on detail to OMB since March of last year, so I'm your surrogate. But the Line
of Business concept'again, through the
enterprise architecture and the business case process'is
to focus on new systems, development modernization or enhancement to your
current system, meaning your current investment. So it's not to go after
mission-critical systems or even systems that are in place today that are
operating fine and shutting them down.
And, in fact, there's an alignment report that is being
generated as we speak that will identify where we see redundancies as related to
the programs and systems that are up in place for e-Gov, such as IE and others,
and why those systems still need to be funded.
But the focus has been on new investment money, on the Lines of
Business.
HITE: With regard to
your last question, that is practical reality, the fact that investments are
going to be ongoing, whether you are talking about Lines of Business across the
federal government, or within a department, or within an agency.
And the question about, are we, through Lines of Business,
talking about establishing a common policy and a common set of procedures to be
implemented across all these agencies? No, we are not, and architecture doesn't
talk about doing that either.
Architecture talks about, for your enterprise, identifying what
are those aspects of the enterprise that we need to do consistently across that
corporate body, and which things don't we need to do necessarily consistently.
Because there are unique mission that are performed by component organizations.
So that is the million-dollar question when it comes to
architecting an enterprise, that minimalistic approach to creating the blueprint'just
enough, not too much.
Actually turning lines of business into a reality is just a
huge, huge undertaking from a governance standpoint. Who is responsible and
accountable, and has the authority to do what in this arena?
KRZYSKO: You need
high-level framework.
Those physical data elements, those business rules, those
how-you-report, are definitive. We've been working on that for a year in the
deployment of a system, a federal procurement data system.
That certainly touches and drives back through any architecture,
because procurements and grants are fundamentally all integrated in the
financial management process. That architecture needs to be documented.
MARTIN: I was
actually going to ask you a question about the governance. Has OMB begun
thinking about how that would work or how we can play into that?
SINDELAR: Absolutely.
There are still a number of skeptics out there, and rightfully so. But OMB can't
always be seen as the big daddy with a big stick. What we need to do as agencies
is own this and develop an effective governance structure as Randy talked about.
I think one of the models right now is probably Integrated Acquisition
Environment, IAE, in terms of a good governance structure in place.
They are engaged and they have enforced a budget discipline.
TEMIN: Some
departments and agencies worry: "By having another agency or another
agency's contract vehicle provide LOB services, will I get the attention and
service? I can't send, you know, just a cure letter. Do you trust the other
agency to handle your family jewels?
CHARBO: I don't think
Line of Business is all that new. You
know, we've had the
National
Finance
Center
for a long time. We've used the Bureau of Public Debt for HR functions for
awhile. So there have been pockets of that for quite a long time; that's out
there.
There are a lot of things that we have to do, just trying to
make it a bit simpler, I think it's as simple as it gets. It's a customer and a
service provider. And why can't you leave them if they aren't providing the
product effectively? I mean, if that's not part of the equation, then it will
break.
You tend to go
where you get good products and good services, and they develop a brand. And
even within the government, there are a few of those brands out there where you
traditionally have gotten good products and good services.
And now I think
what the Lines of Business are even doing is bringing those groups together and
saying, "Notch it up to the next level. Let's compete those. You three,
four, five even, let's compete. Let's go to the next level and maybe improve it
even more."
SINDELAR: You need
service-level agreements with metrics that essentially stand up as contracts
between agencies. But at the end of
the day, you should not care where you are getting your service from, as long as
it is effective and meets the metrics.
There has to be
another mechanism to address where there are issues with performance and the
ability to move from a failing service provider to the new service provider. And
that's one of the things that we are struggling with and addressing in the
governance discussions that are ongoing.
KRZYSKO: You also
have to have strong program management governance to be sure that the execution
of those programs meet those critical needs, all things considered. It's not
just as simple as letting a contract; you have to entertain the transitional
elements of moving in Department of Defense and moving that whole structure to
common services.
TEMIN: Well, you
can't even look at DOD as an entity in this context. The Marines don't even want
to move to the Navy's personnel system.
KRZYSKO: But in
IE we've tiered our governance structure down to the Army, Navy, Air
Force, all 27 components, where they all have a voice at the table and we take
their vote. So they have to come to
the requirements table; so when we go to a shared service environment, our
office represents a sole voice for the Department of Defense in terms of
transition.
CURETON: That's
fine except for the situation that happens when the need of the few outweigh the
need of the many. And in the mission
space, there are reasonable but rare, probably, occurrences where that happens.
And so, the governance process needs to be flexible enough to take those
situations into account.
SINDELAR: And OMB has
said, as recently as this week, that if you have unique requirements'and
small agencies do have unique requirements'where
maybe the common solution doesn't meet in a cost effective way, they need to
come in and make their case and they will hear them out.
TEMIN: Linda still
looks worried. Can you give us an example of what your experience has been,
something that really is unique that you would still want to retain control of?
CURETON: I'm worried
about the small component, the small agency that doesn't have the clout of a
large department; the Homeland Security Department versus the Federal Trade
Commission, and how the two would fare in making their business case to whoever
that they have a legitimate, unique requirement.
And I'm thinking of a situation like that where the two CIOs may
not have the clout to actually impose their will to the decision-makers. And
that causes me some concern.
SINDELAR: Well, I
think it comes down to the question that Tom put in the first place: trust. OMB
has said their door is open if you want to come to them through the business
case process. I mean, I understand your fear.
KRZYSKO: It's about
showing up and understanding the requirements, because we had to deal with that.
I mean, while somebody would say, "DOD would have the big
vote at the table," you know, we have components that are very small that
may have uniqueness that we have to represent and understand the requirements.
TEMIN: What kind of
legislative cover for Lines of Business that doesn't exist now do we need, if in
fact we do need it, to make Lines of Business happen in a meaningful,
widespread, deep way?
HITE: Lines of
Business is good government; it's good management. You don't need to legislate
good management.
CURETON: I disagree
just a little. And this will sound kind of schmaltzy, but the principles that
our government was founded on, the separation of powers, in and of itself
suggests some redundancy and some duplication, and that to maintain to balance
of control.
MARTIN: Part of what
has been challenging is to make one of our organizational elements a shared
service provider for others. And we've lived through a lot of pain in trying to
do that. But everyone comes to the table, 22 CIOs sit around the table and some
will say, "Well, this one legislative issue won't let me do that," or
"This one policy issue won't let me share or let this provider be my
service provider," because they find every trick in the book, every
business process, risk factor, et cetera, to say "It will not work."
It's because the culture is "I've got to stay within my own domain, manage
my own data, be in control of my own destiny."
TEMIN: And I don't
mean to trivialize what Randy said, but there are a lot of things that are good
that are nevertheless legislated.
HITE: Oh, absolutely.
And if things aren't moving fast enough, sometimes Congress will take matters
into its own hands. And part of that deliberative thinking about "How do I
best architect my enterprise," needs to recognize "Where does it make
sense that I need to seek legislative change so that I can do things
better?"
WOJCIAK: I tend to
agree with Randy. I think that many of the legislative tools that you need in
order to give you cover to go to Lines of Business already exist in statute.
So I think we need to see Lines of Business evolve before we try to
develop legislation to help you all.
TEMIN: Oh, you're
watching it?
WOJCIAK: Oh,
absolutely. I think it's a very good, important initiative that makes a
tremendous amount of sense. It really is going to crystallize, I think, a lot of
what was trying to be done with the Quicksilver initiatives.
It's a very important management tool, and Rep. [Tom]
Davis
is very supportive of it as an initiative.
But we have the Clinger-Cohen Act, the e-Gov Act, Federal
Information Security Management Act, and all of those are very nice pieces of
legislation that deal with management principles across agency and information
sharing initiatives. So I tend to think that the capability is already there.
And you know,
after such a rush period of legislation as well, I tend to think we also need to
make sure that we are reviewing the legislation, that we are reviewing how the
e-Gov office is operated, and doing our oversight before we do any more
legislation. Sometimes'and this might shock you'if
we rush to legislate, we don't do a very good job, and we can harm your
capabilities to move towards these management initiatives.
TEMIN: I want to get
a little bit into the weeds now, here, on how Lines of Business might work.
How does it, from a management sense, work if your agency'say,
your department, and then getting down to your agencies and bureaus'are
all using all different Lines of Business providers? We could really have a lot
of different lines of communication going out. How would that work?
And the follow-on to that question would be: How do you make
sure that your Line of Business provider is, in fact, technically up to date?
Even though systems are only the enablers of all this, technology does change,
and the changes in technology do, in fact, enable better business function.
GROSS: Let me speak
to that as an advocate for e-government because it does make good business, so I
would look at it just like as if you were home. You buy various services for
your house; you get cable television; you get gas through the utility company;
you get water through another utility company. And you pay for those services
with an expectation that those services will always be there. It allows you,
using your home as an analogy, to focus on those core things that you need to
get done.
And I think within an organization, if I knew that my financial
services, and let's use that as an example, if I'm buying that from a service
provider, I'm only interested in the service. I'm not interested now in the
boxes that go with it; I'm not interested in the infrastructure that is
necessary to support that.
CURETON: With the
Homeland Security Bill, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was the only law
enforcement organization in the Treasury Department that didn't go to Homeland
Security. We went to the Justice Department, and we got our HR servicing from
Treasury.
We were concerned that when we went to Justice, Justice wouldn't
support it, that they would make us do whatever Justice did. But in hindsight,
it was kind of like being afraid of the boogeyman.
We explained to DOJ what we did, why we did it, and they said,
"Hey, that's a good idea. Maybe we'll consider something like that."
So I think that multiple service provider models could work.
MARTIN: I think it
gets to the core issue that John mentioned, which is to make sure that it's
competitive. And that you have an option.
Truly for some of the key services, and I think that the key is
service-level agreements and having a competitive pool so that you can pick the
right provider. And when the service is no longer being delivered to your
satisfaction, you can do something different.
GROSS: And in that
competitive environment, it forces the provider to stay current with technology
and continue to look at their business as a service provider and continue to
offer you service and look at ways of reducing their costs because, as a
consumer, then you would have an opportunity in that environment to move to
another provider if they cannot reduce the costs, if they cannot scale and meet
your requirements over time.
CURETON: Well, my
husband wants DirecTV and Comcast for some odd reason. So as the CIO in my
house, I said, "No.'
HAVEKOST: I'd contend
that it's, in general, easier to manage a provider service because you have that
single line of communication, as opposed to the complexity of managing contracts
and managing people who would run an in-house service.
SINDELAR: We manage
service providers more today than we ever have in our history. And outsourcing
is a fact of life and will continue, probably, to grow.
MARTIN: Our financial
processes, our acquisition processes, how we do business as a government is very
different than buying service from Comcast versus buying service from DOD. And I
think that's where the fundamental conflict may come in.
If we decide tomorrow we don't want to use DOD or DOJ for a case
management system, how do you get out of that agreement without a year of budget
formulation activity, acquisition planning activity, which could impede your
mission? And I think that's a fundamental flaw, potentially, in our thinking
about this.
SINDELAR: And this is
one of the things that interests us in terms of working with Congress, in terms
of how we fund these various initiatives. And there's a lot of attractiveness to
the franchise-type funding, a working capital fund.
Again, there's questions as to accountability when you enter
that, but to me, that's developing the right metrics, having the right level of
oversight and the right amount of accountability related to that service center
that can address those concerns.
But one of the
things that we are entertaining now is the ability to have whatever that reserve
is in these Lines of Business. The capability, if you are failing from a
performance standpoint, that that service center with a due diligence process
would fund the transition of that client to another service center.
MARTIN: After meeting
certain criteria to ensure'
SINDELAR: Oh, right,
absolutely.
KRZYSKO: Now, the
dialogue is moving across a broader spectrum at an enterprise level and on an
operational level. And we've got to decide that we're going to take on the
enterprise level, not the operational level.
And I think we have a duty to ensure competition in this
environment. We've got to settle on those touch points, adaptive strategies, key
processes where we can get in and out in a shared service provider environment
very quickly.
SINDELAR: There is no
intent to go to one provider in any of these Lines of Business.
Melissa, you're frowning. So I get worried that you're'
TEMIN: Well, now
you've got to talk.
WOJCIAK: We have just
been looking at the franchise funds and how some of the franchise funds have led
to a little bit of confusion in the marketplace. And I think when you look at
what we've been looking at with the GSA reauthorization or reorganization, it is
trying to simplify the marketplace and ensure that you get rid of some of, I
think, the noise, the outside pieces, and refocus agencies to where they can get
good, competitive business models. And
so I was just a little curious about what your thoughts were there.
SINDELAR: Okay. I
think I have to speak now.
TEMIN: I was trying
to get you off the hook, but go right ahead.
WOJCIAK: Just start
singing.
SINDELAR: We have
seen some of the problems with the franchise funds. What I'm saying is there is
a viable alternative there, possibly, if we correct some of the deficiencies
that you cited to make franchise funds supportive of simply doing the Lines of
Business.
TEMIN: Getting back
to the second part of the original question here, which is tech refresh, we try
to put IT in a box and then forget about it; it's just a cloud. In fact, it's
more than a cloud because it really does affect whether a service provider is
state of the art and whether your applications are state of the art, which in
turn affects whether your processes are state of the art.
WOJCIAK: I would say
from an oversight standpoint, we would expect agencies to be utilizing
competitive and innovative acquisition models that would allow them, if they
have one service provider, to quickly transition to another if there isn't
refresh occurring and it isn't an adaptable model.
And I think GSA'S Networx Program is a good example of that.
If it's done right, you are going to have two level contracts that offer a range
of providers to agencies. And if the agencies are managing their telecom and
technology needs effectively, they're going to be able to look at a rapidly
adaptable acquisition model and new services being offered on that model
frequently by the providers who are competing against one another, and evaluate
their choices consistently over the life of the acquisition.
That's something I know chairman
Davis
applauds.
KRZYSKO: Once we get
clarity, whether it would be in an enterprise architecture or in the technology
infrastructure, we can architect around what our pipes are, what our plumbing
is, very quickly in service-oriented architectures.
MARTIN: But the key
to that is having at least a stable network environment, where your
infrastructure will allow you to plug and play. And that is essential. And
without that being built, not one of these applications will work.
And the other key element which gets to the service-oriented
architecture discussion is having a shared or common data model for our business
functions. So a large part of that is, What is the data that we need for a
common case management system, or the financial management system as well? So I
think data, and the integration of the data layer above and beyond the
infrastructure base, is key to any of these apps.
And I see them all as business applications, but to see them
work and work interchangeably where you can plug and play. If the service
provider is not meeting your needs, you can pull it out. But there is interface
controls that are clearly defined as you plug them in. So I think that's
essential.
SINDELAR: Using the
data reference model in the enterprise architecture'
MARTIN: Absolutely.
HAVEKOST: We're past
the era when a monolithic system has to be bulldozed out the back door and
replaced with another monolith. The service-oriented architecture gives us a way
to modularize this and to some extent pick the services.
MARTIN: I'll just share, again, another Homeland Security challenge
that we have with data sharing. And I'm sure Linda can relate to this as well,
but information about folks in the system, be they immigrants or anyone that we
may suspect and on a program or a classified effort.
Being able to
share data between CVP, Customs, Secret Service, ICE, and any of our enforcement
entities, Coast Guard, it is not possible the way that we need it to be.
And I'm just using this as an example.
SINDELAR: Well, there is a discussion about creating an info-sharing
Line of Business.
CURETON: Will our enterprise, the concept of enterprise, change as
in the example that Tarrazia just gave? Because if there in an incident, not
only do we include the federal government organizations but we have state and
locals, first responders, and all that. And so being able to share information
with non-federal entities or other business partners becomes very important,
too.
TEMIN: Price, what is
your service center strategy for staying competitive?
ROE: Well, the
challenge for us, of course, from Justice, is mostly internally focused. Very
much on the immediate need side, we have agents and investigative bodies, ATF,
the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI, and then Secret Service and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, all of that, large case management meetings, and then, of
course, the attorneys. And we have a big litigation effort, as well.
Just on the litigation side, you know, whereas there are needs
across federal government within the litigating community, first and foremost,
we have the U.S. Attorneys, which does 90 percent of the federal prosecutions.
So in theory, they have one system they use. The reality is there is 94 separate
instances of that system because each U.S. Attorney, who are very powerful
individuals, the second they came onboard, [they said] "Well, why can't our
system do this?" And the person in charge of technology in that office is
like, "Well, we can. Sir, yes, sir," or "Ma'am, yes, ma'am."
And then that changes and, poof, you have a brand new system.
So our challenge immediately if we look broadly and say,
"Okay, well, we need to look at an architecture first that will establish
guidelines for the way that the litigating community makes investments in
IT," and making sure that those policies are aligned with the higher
purpose of information sharing.
And this gets to the point that was made earlier, about
enterprise architecture and the importance of it.
WOJCIAK: At the Hill
level, we see a tremendous amount of talk about information sharing. And one of
the concerns we see is a lot of departments are coming up and saying, "We
need information sharing for our department." But then, it's secured and
classified within the department, so we don't share outside the department.
[
Davis
] has been strongly advocating that OMB take responsibility for information
sharing and focus, as it has in the past and move forward with that. So we would
encourage that information sharing be a Line of Business and OMB must be at the
table as you go to an information sharing environment because they are, quite
frankly, the only agency out there that can force other departments to
understand that they cannot try to keep information internally held any longer.
TEMIN: I'm just going
to go right around the table on your summary thoughts of answering two
questions: Can LOBs work in the long term? And what are the metrics by which we
will know we have really got something here?
WOJCIAK: I think
Lines of Business should work in the long term if we are moving, as Randy
touched on earlier, to good government management.
Our view, from the Committee on Government Reform standpoint and
chairman Tom Davis's standpoint, is that it is essential that Lines of Business
are successful in order to facilitate a federal government that is
results-driven on its mission, oriented.
KRZYSKO: Yes, the
Lines of Business can be successful. They
are really value chains of an enterprise capability, and that's us working as a
federal government in sound, efficient strategies. We need strong governance. We
need the councils involved and senior leadership.
The measurements need to be along these lines: Are we changing
our processes? Are we changing our people? Are we telling them where to go? Can
we get technological refresh?
HITE: Yes, yes, it
can work. Yes, it can be successful. And
yes, it can fail. In my recollection, after 25 years of looking at these things,
is it comes down to two fundamental questions: Are we doing the right thing? And
how do we know if we are doing the right thing?
We know we are doing the right thing if we can have the support
to know, through a business case, that this is going to provide business value
and it's going to be measurable.
I think there's still this viewpoint that Lines of Business like
e-Gov initiatives are IT efforts, and they are not. They really need, I think, a
higher visibility at the table and on the President's management agenda.
SINDELAR: Well, I
don't look at the Lines of Business as a separate initiative. I look at it as
just the next step on the spectrum of how we've evolved as a society, as a
country, and the fact that we need to be as efficient and effective as possible
in terms of the fact that we are in a totally different world. I would also say
that it is not a question of whether this is a fad or not. It's a question of
how fast it will be accelerated, and why it will be accelerated, and who does
it.
ROE: But while it's
not about IT, it also is about IT. So I think to be successful in the long term,
where this comes to life is often in the IT world.
GROSS: I would like
to say the Lines of Business have already been successful. The fact that we've
had this type of dialogue at a table where multiple agencies are going into a
room and talking about sharing resources, talking about sharing their business
vision on how they can do business collectively.
I think one of the measures of success downstream will, again,
be institutionalizing this as a process throughout government.
The metrics, of
course, is back to what John said. Saving costs, reducing costs to the
government overall, or reallocation of dollars to other organizations to focus
on the mission.
CURETON: As CIOs, we
make decisions about outsourcing non-essential businesses, and managing to
service levels and expectations, and holding our service providers accountable
for delivering their services. But in looking at, for example, the
National
Finance
Center
: How can I, as a service recipient, hold NFC accountable? What are the service
levels? What are the expectations?
There certainly isn't a profit incentive there or anything like
that, or maybe renewed business. So in order to make sure that it increases the
likelihood of Lines of Business maintaining and not being just a fad, how are we
going to integrate these ongoing metric activities and incentives?
HAVEKOST: I'd say
certainly the Lines of Business can succeed. We have plenty of examples of
cross-agency service provisions today. An example is that my most recent
paycheck came through the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. HHS has
sourced its payroll services to DFAS. So those cross-agency service provisions
can work.
I think a very simple metric is: How many agencies are being
cross-serviced by other agencies, and in particular in the Lines of Business
area, and in other areas as well? I think that's a very simple metric that we
can use about how successful we are being.
CHARBO: Yes, you
know, I think good use of a good product, a good service, and better use of
resources, no one is going to argue with that.
You know, I've sold a lot of systems. I've developed a lot of
systems. I've done mergers and acquisitions. And I'll tell you, I don't have the
conversations that I've had in the last three years or around this table in all
of those product developments and acquisitions.
So there is something unique to this environment that drives
these discussions. And I hope it doesn't drift to the point where we lose sight
of the product, the product and the service that we all are expecting. You can't
mandate that. You know, there will come a time when leadership will have to step
in and say, "This is the vision and direction that we're going to move
in," and then chart a course to do so.
MARTIN: I think Lines
of Business is the way to go. I think it's the way we need to go as a country
and with our federal services, and state and local, frankly.
What I would add to that is that my word of the day is
"risk management," because I think a lot of what we need to really
factor in is "Why are we doing this?"
And it goes to your point.
But there's a reason, not just a process, not just reform, but
why are we reforming? Why are we changing? And I think it's around national
security, and it's making sure that we have the right information at the right
time, to make the right decision for the safety. So I think that's got to be an
underlying driver for why Line of Business makes sense, and not just because
it's a good process and a good financial discussion, but the reason why.