Now, OMB is aiming to launch another minor revolution. More than a third of the federal IT budget goes to infrastructure, and OMB wants to change that. Federal agencies are projected to spend $19.9 billion on infrastructure in fiscal 2006, and the cost is consistently rising. Infrastructure has become an e-government line of business, and OMB and lead agencies are looking for ways to make IT infrastructure more rational and cost-effective across government.
Infrastructure is pretty mundane . . . when it’s working. But when it crashes — when the agency secretary loses e-mail connectivity, when we can’t access basic services and have to reconstruct critical records so that even simple work can resume — infrastructure suddenly becomes compelling. It becomes the difference between productivity and paralysis, and the most critical business process you operate.
The mastery of infrastructure business processes is not only the key to eliminating crises, it’s also indispensable for cost-effective operation within an agency, successful acquisition of contracting support, and migration to a governmentwide line of business like the one OMB intends to implement.
Fortunately, a best-practices model that produces results is already available for IT infrastructure business processes. It comes to us compliments of the British Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, which began collecting, consolidating and enhancing infrastructure best practices in the 1980s.
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) represents a worldwide standard that simplifies infrastructure management and service delivery. It provides a common language and a common model that is vendor-independent. ITIL’s superior measurement and disciplined practices yield lower support costs for agencies, and allows them to specify their needs with precision, reducing risks to vendors responding to performance-based contracts.
ITIL implementation has already caught fire in the U.S. private sector where, faced with tight budgets and Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements for financial disclosure information, companies have looked for ways to cut cost and achieve a competitive advantage. The New York Stock Exchange and the Bank of New York are two organizations that recently made major investments in ITIL. They are finding that these investments pay off quickly. Naturally, this type of investment scenario will appeal to federal agencies facing their own tight budgets.
Agencies wishing to adopt ITIL will simultaneously need to adopt management discipline — a consistent improvement program based on measurement and testing. Managers who make the commitment can improve the financial, management and security controls supported by the infrastructure, and, significantly, establish better and more compliant audit procedures.
The great news for managers is that certification in ITIL is increasingly available in the U.S. In fact, one sign that ITIL is fast becoming the global standard is that 100,000 people are projected to take the ITIL certification exam this year (up from 10,000 in 1999, and 65,000 in 2004).
Getting out in front of the ITIL revolution must become a priority for all agencies — whether they do their work in-house, contract with a supplier, or want to be a first adopter of the OMB infrastructure line of business. Agencies that move toward the ITIL framework will position themselves for well-managed and effective change; those that do not will be taking their chances. Federal agencies should get ready: The revolution starts now.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Fred Thompson
Quelle/Source: Federal Times, 15.09.2006
