If you are a new CIO to an agency, exercise a little restraint. Check to see if there already is an Agency Strategic Plan and an IRM Strategic Plan in place. Don’t jump into the job and make this your first assignment. If the strategy is already set, the career staff is working toward those goals. If you come in during year 2 of the IRM Strat Plan and make a new one, then the career team will begin to feel like they are the ball in a giant pinball game. If there are aspects that are wrong, dumb, or stupid, yes, we should stop doing stupid stuff. But changing the strategy for the sake of making it your strategy is, in itself, stupid.
Please note that very few actually do a good job with their IRM Strategic Plan in this respect. I would say that OMB has been less than clear in identifying what they want, and I would say that agencies have had a bad run of even identifying what they have. But the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) has actually done a really good job with this. This diagram might be a little wonky but they hit the significant elements and virtually everyone working on this program can review this diagram and see their part in it. That is what makes it good.
From a budgeting perspective, and oversight perspective, a leadership perspective, we know what we have to keep tabs on within NARA IT. We know what the sacred cows are from a budgeting perspective.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t give kudos out very much. But in this instance, NARA is a thought leader.
The Department of Education is getting close, but theirs is still a level of abstraction too high to be of more value. But they receive an honorable mention for doing a pretty good job.
I wish agencies would stop investing in the worthless paper and start developing more meaningful ways to convey the important information. It was such a problem when I was at AN AGENCY that I had to make rules for my contractors to try to discourage them from developing the giant 3-inch binders. My rules were that if it was less than 50 pages they could expect me to review it and return comments within two weeks. But if it was more than 50 pages, I would need an additional week for each 10 pages up to 100, and a lot more time beyond 100 pages. My point in making these rules was to escalate the time for review so much that they could never get the government to review one of those binders in the amount of schedule they had to deliver in. I know, it is sneaky, but it was effective in changing behavior.
Remember, a large integrator is going to get $60,000 or $70,000 to support one of these jobs, their mind-set going in is to drop one or two of these binders on your desk when they are done. Screw that in its entirety by stressing the Jeanne Ross version of Enterprise Architecture over the Zachman version. If they can’t deliver value that you can see in a week, literally one week, then get rid of them. There is a new breed of company out there that is geared to deliver in this manner and do it effectively.
I fricking hate endorsements, but look at the work performed by IT Cadre. Their methodology is to drop two or three really good people into your organization, talk to some people, read all of the dumb binders, and develop core diagrams. Nearly every significant project that I come into contact with has or has had someone from IT Cadre or someone of their ilk working to develop a core diagram. It is universal that these are very effective in understanding the complexity and keeping people organized. They use a timescale of weeks, not months, so that is really important too.
This is what EA must become. All that other stuff is a waste of time.
