While it might not be the largest federal agency in the U.S. government or have the biggest budget, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) provides good and services to enable the other federal agencies to function. Its formal mission is "to help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services, and management policies.' GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an annual operating budget of about $16 billion, about one percent which comes from taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, the GSA oversees about $66 billion of procurement annually and also contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. Federal property.
About a half billion of GSA's budget goes to the delivery of information technology to support the agency's acquisition services. As chief information office for GSA, Casey Coleman wants to make sure that every dollar counts. In fact, her primary role focuses on leading and carrying out the efficient acquisition and management of IT solutions across GSA. She manages the agency's IT program, overseeing management, acquisition, and integration of the agency's information services. Her oversight responsibilities include strategy planning, policy capital planning, systems development, information security, enterprise architecture, and e-government.
Enterpriseleadership.org sat recently sat down with Coleman to talk about how she is bringing about organizational change and using technology to achieve business and mission goals. Here is what she had to say:
EL. Can you describe some of GSA's key responsibilities?
CC. GSA is a worldwide organization. We provide business services to the rest of the federal government. Although we're not a high-profile agency, we provide key business services that the rest of the federal government depends on. We manage all of the federal real estate for all of the civilian agencies. We're the landlord for all of those federal buildings. In fact, we're one of the largest real estate organizations in the world. We're also one of the largest telecom providers in the world. We engage with industry to acquire telecommunications and IT services the rest of the federal government can consume at very competitive rates. We also provide services such as fleet and motor vehicles, office supplies and services, and government-wide managed services such as the travel program and the purchase card program. We do much of the behind the scenes work to help other federal agencies fulfill their mission, and most of our key programs relate to that mission.
EL. What was the most important IT initiative you handled during the past two years and why did you have to do it?
CC. Our IT is devoted to the capabilities around acquisition of goods and services, and the management of client funds to pay for those services. The consolidation of our entire infrastructure has helped us to fulfill this objective. We have 11 regions in the U.S. Each of these regions historically had managed its own infrastructure, such as networks, IT support, and help desk. Eighteen months ago we consolidated 39 contracts and 15 help desks into one program centralized under my office. We also consolidated all of those regional IT employees into this office.
EL. How much of a cost savings is this going to be?
CC. We initiated this program in 2007. We've seen at least a 15 percent cost savings. We also have been able to hold our costs steady in 2007 and 2008 from the original 15 percent savings baseline calculated from 2006 expenditures. We have seen a savings of at least $5 million. Moreover, we've been able to take on new initiatives and do more unfunded mandates with existing money.
EL. What is your definition of business impact?
CC. We try to tie our work to the impact that is has on our constituents. As a result, business impact comes from helping the business organization of our agency better perform their mission. We accomplish this either through removing obstacles to enable productivity or deploying new capabilities to help them work in a way that is more modern and more productive. As a federal agency, we deal with the public trust of safeguarding the taxpayers' dollars. To this end, we need to prevent information security breeches.
EL. How do you communicate business impact throughout the organization?
CC. I believe in using every channel available to communicate our message frequently and personally. For example, I send out a periodic newsletter to the senior leaders of the organization via our Web site. I also like to get into the field and to visit with business managers who rely on our services. I want to hear what they need from us.
EL. Have you made changes to your enterprise architecture to better align with the business architecture?
CC. Yes! GSA is a decentralized organization, and we've managed our IT in a decentralized manner. We have had IT applications, and business applications deployed by each of the business divisions within the agency. In the past, the Office of CIO was more responsible for policy, architecture, capital planning, information security, and not so much the management of IT applications.
A great many business trends caused our agency to act in a more unified and more cohesive manner. As a consequence, we realigned our enterprise architecture to manage IT more as a holistic enterprise portfolio of services and capabilities.
For example, within the agency, we have more than 40 different applications which require a user ID and password. As a result, employees of the agency can have dozens of passwords they need to keep track off. We recognized that this isn't a good way to manage security. It certainly isn't a holistic approach to information security. It's also a productivity impediment. We've embarked on an identity and access management initiative. It's in the early stages. We're developing an identify access management solution that all of these applications will then tie into. Through this one solution, our employees will have access to the network and access to all of their applications.
EL. Can you describe the oversight process for making IT investments?
CC. All federal agencies plan their budgets two years in advance. We're about to embark upon the 2011 budget cycle in the Spring 2009. At that time, we'll go through a process to select the most compelling investments for our emerging business priorities. My office is responsible for prioritizing these investments and submitting them to the Office of Management and Budgets. We manage, monitor, and oversee those investments and make sure they're on track.
EL. Does planning IT investments two years in advance pose a challenge to make sure that certain things get done?
CC. No one can foresee with perfect accuracy what is going to happen two years in advance. I'll say that there is always some changes and adjustments that have to be made. We have to call upon senior leadership to be able to make those adjustments as gracefully as possible.
EL. What tools do you use to monitor that two-year planning process?
CC. The federal agency, as a whole, has to use an ANSI-standard earning value management technique. It is a formal methodology for monitoring the spending and scheduling of any investment to make sure it is on track. It requires the submission of reports. It's basically project management. We use a tool called Electronic Capital Planning and Investment Control, which provides an automated way to submit, to track, and to manage our investment portfolio.
EL. Can you describe your governance process?
CC. We've just revised our governance process because it was several years old. We streamlined it and made it more decisive. We have a set of standing committees that focus on practice areas, such as enterprise architecture, capital planning, information security, and infrastructure. These standing committees deal with tactical-level problems, including working out standards, agreeing upon them, and scheduling tasks. Above that is an IT executive council comprised of senior executives from the primary business divisions of the agency. They're responsible for the guidance and decision making on IT investments. Above that, we have a council of the senior business executives of the agency. They're responsible for setting guidance for our investments. I'm on that committee as well.
EL. If you had to look at an IT maturity index, where would your organization rate on the scale?
CC. We have mature processes especially in the areas of governance, capital planning, investment control, and information assurance. There are things that we're trying to move further along that maturity curve, especially, in the management of our infrastructure. Here we're deploying the IT Infrastructure Library.
EL. You worked in the private sector for many years. What adjustments did you have to make to be successful as a public sector CIO?
CC. My industry experience has been invaluable in helping me in the federal sector. On the other hand, I found that moving into the public sector was a learning experience. In the public sector, you deal with public trust and with public taxpayer dollars. Everything you do comes under greater scrutiny than if you were in a company. There are more stakeholders involved in reviewing and approving the course of action. You aren't the captain of the ship setting the course and steering where you will. We are accountable to the administration through the Office of Management and Budget and to Congress. The media is also a stakeholder. The public at large is another key stakeholder. Other government organizations, such as the Government Accountability Office, are also stakeholders. You need to be able to build coalitions, to communicate clearly, and to be transparent. Being able to build teams who can support your initiatives is critical. On the other hand, the time you take to build these teams can prevent you from moving with the agility you'd like. On the flipside, this team building can keep you from doing things that haven't been thoroughly considered beforehand. There is a positive side to that.
EL. Are you involved in any professional IT organizations apart from the federal government?
CC. I'm the vice president of an organization called AFFIRM.org. It's a federation of federal IT managers. I'm also involved in the Federal CIO Council, where I chair that committee on best practices with the CIO from the State Dept. We're trying to collect, to publicize, and to encourage the use of best practices and standard practices across the government. I'm not involved in Women in IT although I try to keep up with what they're doing. I'm also the chair of a conference called the Management of Change. It occurs every year. The American Council for Technology sponsors it.
I mentioned the importance of stakeholder groups. The IT industry is another important stakeholder group. So much of what the government accomplishes occurs in conjunction with the private industry, which provides much of the resources and the technical expertise. It is important to maintain that open relationship and open communications with the industry in a vendor neutral way. Organizations, such as AFFIRM and the American Council for Technology, give us an opportunity to talk about our initiatives, and our priorities in a vendor-neutral environment. We, in turn, get to understand objectively where the industry is making advances.
Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a free-lance writer and IT consultant from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.
