Feds Make Project Management Progress

It was no surprise to see better project management and real-time course correction on a list of eight private-sector best practices the federal government could use to save money. The list was included in a 10-page report by the Innovation CEOs Council, released late last year. The CEOs recommended practices just as business process management and organizational change management could improve the success rate of government projects.

As InformationWeek reports, some progress has already been made, with the White House issuing an official cloud computing strategy, launching a myth-busting campaign about acquisition risks, and identifying some $20 billion in federal IT spending that could in the long run shift to the cloud.

A Washington Innovation article provides a fairly optimistic take on the OMB's 25-point reform plan, recounting the headway made by several agencies and lauding the logical steps already taken, just as breaking the plan into six-month increments. It as well touches on some of the challenges, mentioning the varied IT maturity levels of different agencies and the need for communication between agency IT executives and deputy secretaries.

The feds could probably make good use of some recommendations offered by a Wisconsin state Task Force on Information Innovation Failures back in 2008. Among them:

This white paper introduces actions that organizations can take to drive security efforts from a business and operational perspective and discusses how the right security products can help enable their success.

Define the rules at your company for the proper use of social media platforms just as Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Ensure your users are spending their time productively and company resources are being used for the business.