Improving the IT Dashboard

Government chief information officers' take on the Federal IT Dashboard: "Good idea! Needs work."

That's according to the 2011 results of an annual survey of federal CIOs being presented at a conference on Wednesday in Washington.

The survey, produced by Tech America, an information technology trade association, included responses from 46 federal CIOs.

The IT Dashboard, an online repository for information about federal IT projects, now includes performance and budget information for projects at the department, agency and project level.

But to be more useful for government IT leaders and contractors, it should include information about the likelihood that a project's cost will have to be re-baselined, and should also include reviews by the project and program managers, Norm Lorentz, IT director for the firm that helped produce the survey, told an audience of private and public sector IT workers.

In previous years, survey respondents have said the greatest barrier to turning solid projects in on time was either a mismatch of priorities among program units or a lack of strategic planning. This year, that list was topped by inadequate budgets.