Question

1.     What unique challenges doe the federal government face in managing its IT project portfolio?

2.     The federal government CIO focused primarily on asking agencies to identify high-risk projects. What other information might be valuable for the CIO to receive from agencies?

3.     The current communication effort is focused on identifying and managing high-risk projects across the federal agencies. What are the other ways in which the CIO could use communication across federal agencies to improve performance?

4.     What are the relevant human considerations in reporting high-risk projects?

Answer 1

1. While managing its IT project portfolio federal government faces unique challenges with regards to program and project management. Firstly there is no consistency across the government with regards to training and development of program managers. Most of the agencies of the federal government do not have a systematic approach towards training and development of program managers. Secondly managing IT project portfolio becomes a challenge as program managers lack a professional community within the federal government that is able to provide support and that looks at issues related to project and program management. Thirdly federal government faces a challenge due to poor level of development of laws and policies that are able to address specific issues in the domain of project management. As such federal government finds it difficult to integrate as well as align the diverse functions and requirements of stakeholders.

Moreover, while managing its IT project portfolio, federal government comes across the challenge of creation of project silos. Creation of silos leads to inefficiencies and optimal allocation of resources is compromised.