Insights to Better Business

CUSTOMER CHALLENGE

An agency’s Office of IT (OIT) department that manages millions of dollars of IT investments, incurred growing scrutiny over IT spending after the implementation of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA).

The OIT sought guidance on internal policy development and implementation to demonstrate strong compliance with this and other Federal and departmental policies

Additionally, the Operating Administration’s (OA) Enterprise Architecture (EA) program, once a shining gem for the a once exceptional Enterprise Architecture (EA) program had fallen by the wayside, with reduced governance for EA and a new segment architecture need, the client sought assistance to improve the maturity of this program, bring it into compliance with departmental policy.

T. White Parker proposed a dedicated team to address the seven service areas below:

  • Project Reporting
  • Program Policy Support
  • IT Portfolio Management and CPIC Support
  • Enterprise, Segment, and Information Architecture Support
  • Data Management/Open Data Support
  • IT Project Management Support
  • 5 Year IT and Data Management Strategy Support

The Result:

Through open communication, strategic policy planning, plans for organizational and governance changes, and the development of clear tools and strategies, the OIT is poised and ready for a great organizational change to come into compliance with new regulations, elevate their EA program, identify gaps and redundancies, and generally improve the administration of IT throughout the OA.

Key Highlights:

T. White Parker was able to establish a foundation for effective IT governance while executing day-to-day operations. The team provided clear, actionable recommendations, offered insight into policy development and documentation, and further opened lines of communications between the OIT and the IT Project Managers (PMs). By quickly identifying stakeholders and carefully managing those relationships, the team was able to successfully gather the information needed from relevant parties for data calls in a consistent and timely manner. This constant communication and relationship building also helped smooth the process of budget submission as the team helped the PMs through the estimation process. Additionally, our assessment of the IT Portfolio and guidance through restructuring helped the OA identify and demonstrate savings, which received informal recognition from the department level Office of the Secretary (OST).

By conducting assessments of how other departments and agencies had implemented changes to comply with new federal regulations, and by reviewing the proposed departmental policy, the T. White Parker team was able to shape the departmental policy in a way that would enable the department, OA, and client to most effectively and efficiently comply with the new regulation including the following benefits:

    • Clear and adaptable recommendations for improved control and communication between the review boards.
    • Identified process gaps for locating and using the EA artifacts in the repository, and for tracking their segment, ARM, and IRM alignment.
    • Architected an advanced database for tracking EA alignment and storage of the models for improved ease-of-use for the end user.