What is TechStat?
What is TechStat? | TechStat in Action
The Challenge
The Federal Government has spent over $600 billion on IT over the past decade, yet it has achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has realized from IT. Too often, Federal IT projects and programs are behind schedule, over budget, or fail to deliver results at all, wasting taxpayer dollars.
The IT Dashboard allows the American people to monitor the cost, schedule, and CIO rating of every major IT investment in the Federal Government. However, it is not enough to simply shine a light and hope that performance improves. We must actively use this transparency to hold government managers accountable for results.
The Solution
A TechStat is a face-to-face, evidence-based review of an IT investment. A TechStat is triggered when an agency determines that a project is underperforming, using data from the IT Dashboard and other sources. In the session, the agency CIO and other members of an agency’s leadership team meet for one focused hour. They review a briefing that highlights the management of the investment, examines program performance data, and explores opportunities for corrective action. TechStat sessions conclude with clear next steps formalized in a memo and tracked to completion.
In many cases, the immediate result of a TechStat session is a concrete action plan, developed collaboratively to address issues and turn around the troubled or failing program. However, in some cases, a TechStat session may reveal that the best course of action for an investment is to temporarily halt or even terminate the program. Finding these failed programs sooner saves taxpayers money and promotes accountability to high standards and program management success.
Moving Ahead
In December 2010, the Federal CIO launched a 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management that called CIOs to stand up the TechStat model at the departmental level by March 2011, and at the bureau level within 18 months, in order to turn around or terminate at least one-third of poorly performing projects in their portfolio. As the IT Dashboard continues to provide unprecedented insight into Federal IT investment performance, agency TechStat sessions allow us to take action and turn around these poorly performing programs across the government. The TechStat Toolkit enables agencies to quickly implement this accountability tool.
