IT Investment
Time and ROI: Not on the Agency’s Side BY Edward Bender
W
hile there are many comparisons to be draVn betVeen the public and private sectors from the technologies used to the common IT challenges faced the truth is that the tVo split at critical Iunctures especially after a technology is implemented. The best example of this variation is seen with project metrics – in the private sector world, nearly every IT goal revolves around money, speciƥcally return on investment ROI , a measure that compares the current value provided by a project to the initial outlay Money is obviously a factor for federal agencies, but with the government emphasis on providing a public service, proƥts are not the goal for governmental organizations, unlike private sector companies where revenue and proƥts drive almost every decision Instead, agencies look at time as their primary driver for ROI Rather than asking, ř'ow much is the total cost of ownership” or “how will this drive proƥts,” agencies instead focus on:
] Can new users come up to speed in less time with a new technology? ] 'ow long is the integration period with existing systems and networks? ] 'ow swiftly can daily tasks be completed, and is it faster than the old way? 4ltimately, it’s the clock, not the piggy bank that drives federal IT decisions And if looked at from the perspective of a government CIO, it makes perfect sense The typical government agency is vast, with thousands of employees, processes, systems and networks, all of which are critical to the common good This vastness expands exponentially when looking at a military or DoD entity, as does the critical nature of the tasks Given the size of these organizations, the cost of hardware/software is miniscule in the face of the man-hours which can easily be transformed into budget dollars lost in productivity when it comes to training these behemoth workforces on a new system or integrating a
Ultimately, it’s the clock, not the piggy bank that drives federal IT decisions. And if looked at from the perspective of a government CIO, it makes perfect sense.
new technology with existing systems To better frame this from a private sector perspective, look at “saving time” as productivity improvement Time saved in federal IT is, in truth, labor saved doing routine tasks, speciƥcally the labor of the federal IT workforce, most of which are contractors Since an agency’s IT budget for labor is relatively ƥxed, the challenge for federal IT managers is to get the most work out of a static labor budget – the very deƥnition of productivity So whether a speciƥc agency is focused on “saving time,” “reducing costs,” or “increasing productivity” within federal IT, each goal is directly related to the others To drill deeper, a time-based ROI for agencies is looked at in three separate components: ] Training ] Integration ] Day-to-Day Tasks By breaking down each of these critical components, it becomes easy to see why agencies value time far more than just dollar signs
MODERN GOVERNMENT · March - April 2013
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IT Investment
The Training Footprint With the country still emerging from a vicious recession, government resources have shrunk considerably from the “better days ” While still larger than most standard corporate budgets, agencies are being tasked with doing more with less — but less in this instance does not simply refer to cash It also means that allocations for training are all but gone, making new technology implementations something of a gamble The expense of paying tuition for a training class for an IT worker is only part of the problem Every week spent in training reduces an employee’s labor hours on a yearly basis by roughly two percent, taking into account 50 workweeks each year In the IT world, with the rapid pace of technological change, 80 hours per year for training is a near necessity, especially with less experienced employees and increasingly complex IT solutions Federal systems and network administrators sysadmins, netops admins , the cogs that make agency networks run smoothly, are often faced with
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March - April 2013 · MODERN GOVERNMENT
Federal agencies must fall out of love with overly complex, monolithic frameworks that promise a world of features.
implementing and utilizing technologies that are far too often unintuitive and require weeks, if not months, of training to actually leverage for value As such, training on new technologies is vital for these projects to actually deliver on their promises to federal IT But without a training budget, such beneƥts simply cannot be delivered -o matter how resourceful a sysadmin is, if they do not have the necessary training to use a highly complex system, the project is highly prone to failure, regardless of how promising it looked at the outset But with every week that is devoted to training, costs rise and available labor is reduced Sysadmins in training cannot perform routine IT work, leading to stalled projects until training is completed -ow, not only is the project late but end users are likely unhappy with their daily IT support To break out of this trap, training is typically the ƥrst line item that federal IT managers slash when budgets are squeezed, with today’s federal ƥnancing environment a prime example “The lights” must be kept on and new projects must be delivered, so training takes the fall – but it’s a pyrrhic victory at best for agencies, unless they implement technologies that increase productivity without the steep training requirement Federal agencies must fall out of love with overly complex, monolithic frameworks that promise a world of features some of which may not even be needed or never actually used , but only if sysadmins complete PhD-level courses to be able to
properly use the technology Instead, agency buyers must turn to simpler, easy-to-understand IT solutions – they may not oƤer the same breadth of capabilities as the more complex frameworks, but oƤer enough, legitimately useful, productivity enhancing functionality with a fraction of the required training budget There truly are easy-touse but still powerful IT solutions that exist, even in the complexity-heavy world of IT management Many of these solutions are available via online downloads and have extensive, online documentation via community sites and video channels, enabling a “train as you go” scenario for agency IT teams Reducing the training footprint also plays indirectly into the next component of agency ROI: Integration with existing systems
Face the (Legacy) Music Beyond training, agencies also calculate ROI based on how easily a given IT solution can integrate with existing systems From the outside, this sounds simple right? Between cloud technologies and the latest and greatest server technology, integration should be easy That sound you are hearing is ten thousand federal sysadmins laughing at your naivet¤ Technology integration at an agency level is anything but simple, and adding anything new to the mix can be an incredibly painful process, especially when it comes to man-hours Agency systems are a mix of emerging technologies, typically
IT Investment deployed on a trial or pilot basis, as well as tried-but-true mature systems for standard applications and usually a mixture of legacy or extinct solutions supporting mission critical applications This also includes IT projects that failed to be adopted by the actual agency IT professionals, like monolithic IT management technologies Simply rippingand-replacing all of these technologies is not practical nor economically viable , so IT managers need to integrate to get value from their paid-for investments Integration is a key consideration for agencies when it comes to ROI This means that any IT project will be measured by how quickly it can be integrated into existing operations Much like reducing the training footprint, overlycomplex technologies will fail to meet agency ROI goals – they simply take too long to meld with the heterogeneous mixture currently in place at most governmental organizations Simple-to-learn, easy-touse, integrated and streamlined technology is the direction in which agencies are moving These technologies can eƤectively be plug-and-play, requiring little manual integration time when connected to an agency network, cutting the time required dramatically and greatly boosting ROI
The Daily Grind The ƥnal piece of the agency ROI puzzle is how eƧciently a new solution helps federal sysadmins complete their daily tasks Making routine changes, performing routine break/ƥx tasks, running
reports, checking for system breaches or outages and keeping an overly complex network up and running are just a few of the tasks facing some of the most important employees in the federal government These tasks take time, a lot of time, for sysadmins to do properly – if new technology implementations only add to this burden, agencies are going to and rightfully should look the other way Sysadmins are already overburdened, so why would agency CIOs want to task them with additional technologies that only add more to overfull plates? Instead, agencies should look to solutions that add automation, allowing sysadmins to leverage IT software that lets them conduct routine tasks more quickly, which translates into higher productivity and reduced labor costs for the agency CIO More than just making sysadmins lives easier, enabling automation frees federal IT professionals to work on tasks that are far more important than routine changes and keeping the lights on Automation and its associated technologies can also help sysadmins aggregate all of their agency’s disparate systems and networks to provide a global view of the health of the IT infrastructure Eventually this will unify IT processes into a single, streamlined workƦow that helps sysadmins stay on top of outages, breaches and potential malware attacks With their standard tasks being done more quickly with the help of automation, sysadmins have more time to do missioncritical tasks, whether it’s breach remediation or adding new, critical services to an agency
Simpleto-learn, easy-to-use, integrated and streamlined technology is the direction in which agencies are moving.
network In essence, agencies are creating their own ROI by providing automated tools for standard sysadmin tasks, gaining value through productivity gains of sysadmin time 4ltimately, agency ROI for IT is built upon technologies that free federal value-creators to actually create value through additional productivity gains by their IT professionals By aiming for technology implementations that reduce training requirements, enable easier integration with existing systems and networks and automate routine sysadmin tasks, agencies are improving eƧciencies and their operations without draining man-hours on overly complex, monolithic IT solutions Or, in other words, by aiming for simpler, streamlined, automated technologies, agencies really do have time and ROI on their side ǤǞ
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