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When Karen Evans takes over as the Office of Management and Budget's technology chief this month, she will face a shortage of well-trained federal IT project managers, according to panelists at a technology forum Tuesday.

Evans, scheduled to begin her new job as early as next week, will inherit an IT workforce adept at technological innovation but lacking in business acumen, according to Dan Chenok, branch chief for information policy and technology at OMB. The Bush administration is engaged in a major effort to develop skilled technology managers in-house, he said at a discussion hosted by the National Press Club.

Building a workforce with both scientific and management expertise should be one of the "defining concerns" of any CIO, said Scott Hasting, chief information officer of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Homeland Security Department. The government has already made some progress on recruiting MBAs and others with significant business experience to head IT initiatives, he said.

But more progress on developing in-house management talent is needed, according to Kim Nelson, chief information officer for the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has some very able IT managers, she said, but in general, the state and federal technology workers under her charge are ill-equipped to handle big-budget projects, she said. As a result, they end up taking too long to complete work and spend more money than planned.

Failure to meet deadlines and overspending can in turn influence OMB's recommendations for future project funding. When forced to prioritize among various technology initiatives during the budget process, the administration favors projects for which managers present a strong "business case" and demonstrate that they have met previously agreed upon performance standards, Chenok said.

The Office of Personnel Management is addressing the gap in IT management skills through its e-learning Web site - one of its five e-government projects. A section of the site called the "IT Workforce Development Roadmap" allows technology specialists to assess their level of management competency, formulate a personal career development plan and find training courses to help them reach their goals.

Privately run programs also offer management courses for federal technology experts. For instance, the Council for Excellence in Government runs a year-long fellows program to prepare mid-managers for senior executive positions. Fellows can specialize in e-government.

In addition, the e-government bill signed into law last December gives agency CIOs the option of sending staff members on exchange programs, where they could temporarily switch positions with private sector technology managers. This type of "cross-fertilization" would benefit agencies greatly, George Molaski, president and chief executive officer of E-Associates LLC, a technology consulting company in Falls Church, Va., said on Wednesday.

Other issues Evans faces as federal technology chief include information systems security, privacy concerns and a lack of adequate funding for some projects, the panelists said. The federal government will also need to do a better job of coordinating its technology projects with those at the state and local levels, said panelist Jim Flyzik, a security consultant and a former senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

COMMENTS

• These "officials" can't have it both ways. You cannot retain skilled, professional federal IT workers and also subject them to A-76 studies in which you claim their jobs aren't "inherently governmental." Managers cannot claim that their federal employees could be replaced by cheaper contractors, and then complain that federal employees are looking for other jobs. Anonymous Posted October 29, 2003 6:43 PM
• I read your article about the lack of skilled federal IT managers and found it very interesting. One thing I would like to add is that there are CIO certified university programs out there that might be a great fit as a program for IT people to cover the managerial background. In fact, I am currently enrolled in one of these programs--Management Information Systems at the George Washington University. The program is great in integrating the management field with the IT field in a program that falls under Management Science field. Just thought of sharing! Anonymous Posted October 10, 2003 3:48 PM
• There is no shortage of skilled IT people, there is a shortage of competent personnel people, classification processes, and the policies and procedures that hiring organizations follow. I see software put into use at DoD that would never have gotten out of my shop in the private sector. Air Force software I work with is crap, but is put out anyway and then they try to fix it after the fact. The idea of testing software is to give it to the user to use and if it doesn't work - try to fix it. The users I see use software to collect and move data around - they have no idea how to use a system's power to perform the work they do, or maybe they are afraid the computer will eliminate their jobs. Finally, trained computer people that arose in the field in the late 1960's and early 70's did not see college courses in information management - they developed them. Working with computers and developing software are trainable skills - not college courses any more than machine shop is a college course. A degree in computer science is ridiculous and should be eliminated, but it sells and the colleges are in business to attract students and perpetuate the salaries of the faculty and administration and not to fight for the educational value of their curriculum. Government hiring requirements follow the same process. In the development of a system, you should have three people involved in the function for every data processing person in the team. Also, dta processing people are not communications people, network and web people are communications people not data processing people. Most users do not know or care about such a difference - an IT person is an IT person and that is that! GovExec.com reader Posted October 10, 2003 7:36 AM