Creating a Balanced Portfolio of Information Technology Metrics

Information technology has made possible the availability of real-time data and the tools to display that data, such as dashboards, scorecards, and heat maps. This has boosted the use of data and evidence by government decision makers in meeting their agency and program missions. But what about the use of performance metrics by agency chief information officers themselves?

Typically, CIOs have a good inventory of metrics regarding the performance of their technical infrastructure, such as server down time. Metrics on non-technical elements, however — such as innovation capacity of the IT department and the health of the overall IT organization — are in earlier stages of development. These metrics are critical for CIOs to effectively manage their IT depart­ments, and to convey the strategic value of IT capabilities for attaining agency-wide objectives.

Professor Desouza argues that a balanced portfolio of metrics are needed: for project management, for operations management, and for innovation.  Based on interviews with over two dozen seasoned government CIOs, he identifies illustrative metrics that CIOs might consider adopting and offers a set of recommendation for how CIOs might go about designing, implementing, and evaluating the effectiveness of their metrics initiatives.

Read the article by Federal Computer Week.

Read the article by NextGov.

Listen to the interview on Federal News Radio.

Read the article by Governing.

Read the article in Government Technology.

Read the article by Brookings.

Read the article by GovLoop.