The U. S. CIO Steven VanRoekel issued a draft Shared IT Services Strategy in December 2011, which may be found at http://www.cio.gov/sharedservices.pdf.
“Shared First” is the foundational paradigm for this Federal Information Technology (IT) Shared Services Strategy, which provides Federal agencies with guidance on the identification, implementation, and operation of shared services for commodity, support, and mission IT functions. This draft document reflects current thinking regarding the Federal Government’s approach to Shared IT Services.
OMB is actively seeking industry and public comments on the document through February 17th, and is using IdeaScale (http://sharedservices.ideascale.com) to gather those comments.
The document does a good job laying out a roadmap and I really like their focus on starting with the lowest level of complexity and the lowest level of collaboration (within a department and then working their way up)
My worries is that “Shared First” will run into the same issues as former Lines of Business under Bush Administration. Technically it is pretty easy – but it is really hard to get folks to work together as the incentives to share aren’t always there (easier to complete project when you own it, people get their own budgets, etc)
I think a big focus in the strategy that is missing is both the reason to “Share First” and the communication strategy. How do you get buy-in and get people truly wanting to “share first”?
What’s your feedback?
This will be the biggest change in govt IT procurement behavior we presently know. The states are languishing in red ink, stalled IT projects, and lost leadership while we bumble around for help. Can govt truly unite on this effort? I applaud this Mr VR’s leadership. Carpe Diem baby!