Thanks again to Tom Temin for joining us this week as a guest blogger.  As I mentioned earlier, Tom will be joining us over the next few weeks as we dig in and discuss:

1) what should be done to improve performance while reducing costs,

2) how can we actually do it,

3) who has already successfully completed this step, and

4) what were the results of their efforts.

Now we get to the “how can I do that?” portion of the discussion…

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Examine your business processes. Taking advantage of centralized IT services sometimes requires a change in how departments or agencies regard their business processes. The traditional, default way of thinking is that agency-unique processes should be accommodated by systems. This has resulted in expensive and unsuccessful programs. One example is the Defense Travel System (DTS). A recent story in Federal Times chronicled how, after 15 years, DTS is still unfinished, in part because the DOD travel rules it must encompass are so voluminous and complicated that perhaps no software engine can incorporate all the possibilities. This prompted David Fisher, the director of the DOD Business Transformation Agency, to ask Congress for help in cutting back on all that process that’s proven so resistant to expression in computer code.

That might be an extreme case, but it shows agencies, offices, bureaus and even whole departments that contemplate either launching, or signing onto, a centralized IT solution must examine their own business processes with an eye towards altering them to fit the solution. After all, those processes work for somebody.

Make the case. Conversely, the department Chief Information Officer must make the case to constituent organizations that a standardized IT solution is in users’ best interests. Forrester Research showed, for example, that consolidating three commercial applications into one can yield a Return of Investment of 133% in the first year – meaning there are operational savings to be passed along. In some cases, centralizing provisioning of a single application that may be used universally in a department but administered office-by-office, can yield significant licensing savings simply by eliminating unused or redundant copies.

Offer excellent service. A CIO wishing to institute a centralized approach will face reluctance by user organizations to give up control, if the would-be customers have been used to administering their own application service delivery and handling their own trouble tickets. That’s why the first step might be to set up – and demonstrate – you’ve got an efficient, reliable and accountable help desk and trouble ticket process.

Another element in the centralized process to consider is offering self-service on provisioning and handling recurring issues. Several commercial products exist that manage change management itself and tracking of service level agreements with subscribers to centralized IT services, and these should be part of the planning. These packages allow the CIO shop to monitor performance, and continually improve it based on statistics and knowledge gathered as the program proceeds.

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Tom is a respected commentator on government IT issues and is the Editor of FederalInsider.com.  Tom is co-host of The Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Jane Norris, a weekday morning news and talk program on WFED AM 1500 in Washington D.C. His Twitter feed is #FedSecurity, and we’re pleased to have him join the blog.  Thanks to Tom for his support of these ideas.

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