IT Governance Arrangement

Federated/Hybrid

Central IT Office

Office for Information Technology (OA/OIT)

OA/OIT is nested under the Office of Administration and is headed by Deputy Secretary for Information Technology (equivalent to a State CIO). OA/OIT is the executive agency responsible for leading and coordinating IT services in the Commonwealth in accordance with policy, planning, and budget directives adopted by the Enterprise Information Technology Governance Board. They lead cross-agency prioritization of IT investments through a collaborative approach to ensure that the Commonwealth is leveraging existing solutions to maximize investments and encourage common service and resource utilization across the enterprise, and to ensure that the business side of government is the driver behind technology.

Office of Executive Deputy Chief Information Officer
They are responsible for coordinating Communities of Practice (CoP) through the Deputy Chief Information Officers assigned to each of the four CoPs: Health and Human Services (HHS), Public Safety (PS), Environment (ENV), and General Government Operations (GGO). The Deputy CIO for a Community of Practice is responsible for reviewing, approving, and recommending to the Deputy Secretary for Information Technology all agency and central IT senior management appointments and supervising and conducting performance reviews of agency CIOs within the respective CoP.

• Bureau of Infrastructure and Operations
• Bureau of IT Services and Solutions
• Bureau of Integrated Enterprise Systems
• Bureau of Enterprise Architecture

The Office reviews and approves all agency IT projects over $100,000. They establish, through the CoP process, a Commonwealth-wide IT strategic plan, IT strategic plans for each CoP, and individual agency IT strategic plans that ensure IT projects funded in the Governor's budget are the most critical, are aligned with enterprise goals, and are delivered in a collaborative, non-redundant manner.

State CIO

Deputy Secretary for Information Technology

The Deputy Secretary for IT is appointed by the Governor.

Roles of other agencies in state IT management

State Agencies
Each agency has a central IT organization within their agency to manage IT processes and to submit an annual strategic plan to OA/OIT. The plan must comply with enterprise hardware, security, and with the creation of a single IT budget for their agency. The budget creation process is as follows: each agency’s secretary must approve and “rank” his or her agency’s technology projects (by ROI, risk, and with strategic business priorities and collaboration across agencies); these ranked projects go to the appropriate Community of Practice where they are discussed and prioritized. Once the CoPs rank the IT projects falling into their domain, the Enterprise IT Governance Board reviews the projects and makes funding decisions for the Governor’s budget.

Office of Administration
The Office reviews, approves, and negotiates all IT contracts. Its IT Contracts Office manages all IT procurements for agencies under the jurisdiction of the Governor and implements the IT consolidation effort in order to maximize the deployment of cost-effective quality IT services.

Governor and Legislature
As in most states, the Governor presents his final budget proposal to the legislature for final funding decisions.

Coordination Mechanisms

Enterprise Information Technology Governance Board
The Board was established in 2004 and consists of the Secretaries of Administration, Budget, and General Services; the Governor’s Chief of Staff; and the Deputy Secretary of IT. Their role is to oversee IT governance for the state and to counsel the Governor on the development, operation, and management of IT investments, resources, and systems. They have the authority to resolve interagency disputes, make and implement recommendations on staffing and operational issues, monitor project performance, and perform all other such duties as assigned by the Governor. They also review CoPs’ projects and make funding decisions for Governor’s budget.

Communities of Practice (CoP)
There are four Communities of Practice: Health and Human Services; Public Safety, Environment, and Government Operations.

The CoPs are crucial to Pennsylvania’s IT and business integration strategy because they cluster agencies with similar missions and needs to promote integrated technology solutions across these agencies. The CoPs are encouraged to create projects together and are required to prioritize projects for all agencies within their domain based on several factors: return on investment, risk, alignment with strategic business priorities, and collaboration across agencies. Although most states do have community of practice groups, usually centered around GIS or public safety, Pennsylvania is the only one to formalize this concept and involve all executive agencies in this process. The CoPs were purposely created in order to bring the business side of the individual agencies into the IT planning process as the assumption is that it is the business that should be the driving agent behind IT applications.

As explained above, the CoPs are managed through deputy CIOs within the central IT office. Each are responsible for one of the four areas to oversee the execution of the plan within each CoP. The deputy CIOs help resolve issues, approve projects, coordinate budgeting and funding, and work to define common business processes and functions across all agencies to increase business effectiveness.

Enterprise IT Governance Committee (EGC)
The EGC provides strategic leadership and direction for IT investments and standards implementations. Its purpose is to provide direction to the IT Governance Board and OIT regarding overall technology governance within Pennsylvania. The EGC is comprised of senior agency directors and CIOs and represents agency IT issues and needs. The EGC directs the analysis, creation, delivery, and management of shared services.

Enterprise Architecture Standards Committee (EASC)
The EASC supports the gathering, review, and analysis of Commonwealth business requirements and makes recommendations on technology solutions based on research and analysis performed by various domain teams established around a specific topic, such as access, application and others. They guide the development of IT standards and policies on behalf of the enterprise. Membership for the EASC is comprised of agency CIOs, IT Managers, Chief Technology Officers, IT Strategic Planning Managers, OIT Community of Practice, and Enterprise Project and Strategic Planning Managers.

Office of Geospatial Technology
This office is responsible for researching the needs of Commonwealth agencies requiring geospatial information systems and solutions. It has established governance structures to coordinate research and resources across the CoPs, Commonwealth agencies, and local government organizations.

All four OIT CoPs are involved in the use and adoption of geospatial technologies to concentrate on common geospatial needs that can be met as a shared service and identify common business problems across each community.

IT Governance processes – past and present

“In 2002, Pennsylvania had a federated IT model with over 43 IT agencies under the Governor’s control. The role of the Central IT agency was to provide application services and infrastructure services and establish technology policy. Since 1995, when the OA/OIT was formed, it mainly focused on coordinating infrastructure services. Each agency designed and built its own applications, networks and data centers. Investment decisions were made by individual agencies for specific projects resulting in redundant infrastructures and non-standard technology solutions. In 2004, a new model was launched, to a centrally controlled and locally delivered model where the model is centralizing infrastructure, strategic planning and procurement, while allowing technology organizations to focus on business solutions delivery. The Keystone Plan was implemented via Executive Order 2004-8, which was amended at the end of 2005, and titled Enterprise Information Technology Governance Board. The Executive Order directed interagency IT coordination through an IT Governance Board chaired by the State CIO. The Communities of Practice structure was established with work flow processes, to develop strategic plans that review IT expenditures, and set Architecture standards. The keystone of this model was the principle that IT management must be closely aligned with business management. The acquisition, development and deployment of IT solutions must be sponsored by, and within the line of business management. Expensive technology projects with long lead times under a “build it and they will come” justification are no longer acceptable. Instead, IT must now justify technology investment in business terms and within time frames visible by management. The establishment of the Communities of Practice and Shared Services were the primary initiatives to refocus the Commonwealth’s IT culture from technology to business and from agency/project centric to enterprise centric with vertical alignment to business functions.”

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Keystone Plan (2006-2009):
The Evolution of Citizen Centric Government Services