The General Accounting Office's new framework for determining the maturity of IT investment processes is being tested at the Immigration and Naturalization Service and so far, the guidance has been well received.
Both the GAO and INS say they will benefit from what essentially is a dry run investigation using the Information Technology Investment (ITIM) framework. A draft of the new framework (AIMD-10.1.23) was released last week and will be revised and fine-tuned before another version is released in September.
The new framework aims to clarify and improve upon current guidance regarding IT investments in order to cut the risk of costly mistakes.
"If this framework is used constructively, every agency will be glad to have it, frankly," said David Goldberg, acting associate commissioner for information resources management at INS. "As to how it will be seen by federal agencies, that depends on how GAO uses the information produced under the framework. If used in a constructive fashion, its receipt will be very good. If used as a club, it will lose some of its effectiveness and credibility," he said.
GAO's release of an exposure draft is different from the norm, said Lester Diamond, an assistant director of GAO's Accounting and Information Management Division. That's because the ITIM framework is not an investigative report but rather a set of guidelines for how to investigate government agencies.
"This is really guidance for us to use internally for our assessments and evaluations of government agencies," Diamond said.
According to Diamond, INS initiated the GAO investigation, it was not requested by Congress. Goldberg said he feels very positive about what the new framework can do for IT investment management practices at INS and other agencies.
"We now have a tool available to evaluate ourselves and that is very useful," Goldberg said. "This new framework is looking at IT investments in terms of the maturity of the management processes involved- not IT systems per se but the processes used in managing them."
The INS has just completed the initial self-assessment phase required by the new framework, which involved locating pertinent documents for GAO to investigate. Now, GAO is examining the documents INS produced. GAO will then interview INS employees and finally present INS with a summary on where the agency's investment management practices stand. Eventually, GAO will produce a report that includes specific recommendations INS can follow to make improvements in their IT investment strategy.
"A lot of money is being spent on IT in government and the very top level of leadership needs to take responsibility for that," Diamond said. "Not every project can be fully funded. This means executives must identify what projects do and don't meet the strategic view of an organization as a whole. That's the point at which IT investment hits the agency mission and strategy."
Goldberg thinks that agencies will hire contractors to perform investigations using the ITIM because federal agencies benefit from third party studies.
GAO is using the ITIM framework in an investigation of another agency that wished to remain anonymous. Still another agency is using the new framework to structure its investment management practices without a GAO investigation.