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Awesome. No other word for it. I’m talking about the U.S. Government IT spending dashboard.
For sure, the dashboard is clearly in the very early stages of development and a lot of the data remains to be populated/ developed – but it is more than just a stake in the ground, it is a benchmark for the future.
Quite simply this is the global yardstick by which we can measure the transparency of Government IT spending.
So what is this tremendous thing that has got me so enthusiastic about IT?
A very simple framework of the U.S. Federal IT portfolio, that shows not just how the IT budget is split across Departments and Agencies but also the state of play for IT investments in each Dept./ Agency.
For example, here is a snapshot of the Agriculture overview of IT spending:
The chart shows the overall status (Red, Amber, Green) of the 36 major IT investments currently underway, with sidebars to indicate how the projects are doing financially (budget) and time-wise (schedule/ plan).
From this high-level aggregation, you can drill-down to the next level to see the list of investments. Wow!
I know it’s not rocket-science but such a list would be political dynamite in some countries, such as the United Kingdom.
The Federal IT spending dashboard truly is an object lesson in transparency, with particular importance for achieving public confidence, by making it clear how Government IT investments are being managed.
Contrast the American open-ness to the HM Government policy in the UK, where those responsible for IT spending have fought tooth and nail, for years, against the release of even rudimentary information. Shame on them!
Perhaps they know and fear how things would look if the U.K. followed the U.S. example.
Of course President Obama swept to power on a slogan of “Yes, we can” – whereas the U.K. Government seems to cling to power on a slogan of “No, we bloody well won’t tell you!”
I’m glad I got that off my chest.
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