Capital Planning and ITIM Maturity
Situation OMB Circular A-11 established the budget formulation process for the Federal government. The circular annually evolves as more requirements are added to ensure that agencies efficiently control the spending of decreasing IT funding. Emphasis is placed on ensuring that security is effective, critical infrastructures are protected, privacy controls are implemented, and that IT systems are consistent with national and agency architectures. Correspondingly GAO is measuring the effectiveness to the IT Investment management process with a maturity framework, which is linked to enterprise architecture and security. The governance and decision-making process both at the Departmental and operating unit levels has been a significant issue of concern.
Analysis The capital planning process for IT investments has posed a significant problem for many agencies. Major IT investments are documents called OMB Exhibit 300s and budgets formulated in form Exhibit 53s. Agencies must have a bottom-up process for formulating their budgets but need to implement an effective governance process that work across the portfolio level for the organization. OMB will not grant funding to those organizations without a mature budgeting process. Further, GAO has developed the ITIM maturity model to measure implementation of key practices. Most agencies are currently at Stage 2 but need to archive Stages 3 or 4 maturity within the next couple of years.
Solution System 1 has strengthened the capital planning process in a number of differing Federal venues. System 1 has conducted an ITIM improvement study across the Government. This examined the governance process, looked at resources required to effectively implement a capital planning program, examined new tool sets being deployed by various vendors, and identified good practices to quickly improve the client performance in capital planning. System 1 has also developed agency submittals to OMB; enhanced security, privacy, and other areas; and supported the resolution of issues relating to GAO assessments. System 1 has developed guidance integrating security and capital planning which has been deployed across the Federal government and coordinated activities with OMB, GAO, and NIST.