The Role of the Fed CTO

In a recent article in InformationWeek, "Down to Business: What Obama's CTO Should (And Shouldn't) Focus On" Bob Preston discusses the role of the "to be appointed" Federal CTO. His first question is do we need one? My response is yes. I have worked with several branches of the DOD and civilian agencies in the past. Each one is operated based on it's own culture. The general practices of one agency are not necessarily the practices of another. Initially this may seem like a very logical and good system, because all agencies and departments are not the same. However, I think that there is a lot of redundancy in this system and that because of this, there is also a lot of waste.

As a country we should put running the government as efficiently as possible as one of the top priorities of the new administration and the American public. So why create a new position at the top? This certainly would cost more right? Well I say not exactly. If someone can unify all these systems and look forward enough to get all the systems to work together..... in the future, it would create efficiency. Infrastructures could be shared, and of course streamlined because now agencies would be using the systems together.

Certainly there would be areas where the benefits of sharing could not be applied, as in specific applications to run the business, but much of what is out there at the foundation of the agency networks could be used cooperatively. What is used by the Department of Treasury is not what is being used by the Department of Interior or The Internal Revenue Service. All use their own systems, infrastructure, and of course applications. Why could not forcing these different agencies to work more cooperatively create efficiency? I strongly believe it can!!

I have read several articles and interviews with industry visionaries regarding their view of the role of the Federal CTO and the one common thread is to eliminate the redundancy and "Stove Piped" infrastructures that exist. Let the information that needs to flow between the agencies be shared. Do not recreate information because one agency is using one application verses another. What a waste of time and space!!

There are many different opinions on how the Fed CTO position should be modeled. In the InformationWeek article by: Chris Murphy, "Federal CTO Agenda: The Industries Advice to Obama", the opinions of many of the largest players in the IT industry are expressed. Some I agree with and some I do not, but if we can do one thing that they, and I agree on, let it be to bring down the walls in IT that exists between the federal departments and agencies. If we address this one issue now and always going forward, we will make the biggest difference in preventing waste.