On January 31st, REI Systems’ Eric Co, Project Manager of Open Government, and Nicolas Ojeda, Principal Business Analyst, published an article in Fedscoop on the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act that was signed into law on December 12, 2017. Co and Ojeda offer their advice on how agencies can plan ahead and make smart investments so that they have the best chance of gaining MGT’s Tech Modernization Fund in 2018 and 2019. An excerpt of the article is below:
Unfortunately, agencies will be competing against each other for these same, limited dollars. What can a savvy CIO do to maximize his or her agency’s chances of winning funding for its project? Here are four ideas.
1. Have an IT strategic plan in place
If an agency has not already done so, it should put in place a formalized IT modernization strategy. Of course, that strategy should link logically and directly to the agency’s mission and specific, measurable performance objectives and non-IT operating costs. One of the requirements for the funding application is a strong business case for the proposed project. Tying the proposed project into an overall IT strategy, makes it possible to specify which future IT spending, or program operations spending, the agency will be able to save as a projected return on investment.
Read our previous article on how CIOs can stay prepared in 2018 under the MGT Act.