IT Governance Arrangement

Centralized

As of 2002, all IT functions and services were transferred to the central IT office.

Central IT Office

The Department of Information Technology (DIT)

DIT was created in 2001 by an executive order to achieve a unified and more cost-effective approach for managing information technology among all executive branch agencies. DIT provides technical and management support services to all Michigan state agencies. It is organized into the following five subdivisions:

• Bureau of Agency Services - Liaison between DIT and the individual agencies. Their role is to work with the agencies to achieve agency goals. They are responsible for ensuring delivery of agreed upon services. They work with the two other branches to make certain that agencies receive excellent customer service and that the technology solutions chosen are the best option. They also work across all agencies to identify common technology needs in order to leverage resources.
• Office of Employee and Financial Services- Responsible for the oversight of the department's human resource functions, facilities management, and budget and financial management. 
• Bureau of Infrastructure Services - Responsible for maintaining and supporting the state's information technology infrastructure. They are accountable for desktop services, field services, data center services, telecom & network management, and technical services.
• Office of Security - Responsible for identifying, managing, and mitigating security risks and vulnerabilities within Michigan state government computing resources. OES is charged with disaster recovery planning, risk management, security awareness and training, working with state agencies to assist with their security issues, and enforcement of state security policies and procedures.
• Office of Strategic Policy - Its role is to assure, through policies, standards, and research, the consistent, efficient, and effective delivery of information technology services.

DIT assists the State Budget Office with the development of IT budgets for the executive branch.

State CIO

State CIO and Director of Department of Information Technology

The State CIO is appointed by the Governor to be in charge of DIT and sits on the Governor’s cabinet.

Roles of other agencies in state IT management

State Agencies
State agencies create an IT budget request that is submitted to DIT and the State Budget Office.

The State Budget Office
With assistance from DIT, the Budget Office creates IT budgets for the executive branch. The review is designed to ensure that the budgets only include those proposals that fit into the overall strategic information technology management plan of the state and provide a reasonable return on investment are included.

Governor and legislature
The Governor submits his budget to the legislature for approval.

Coordination Mechanisms

Given the centralized nature of Michigan’s IT, the majority of the coordination mechanisms in place are internal to DIT.

Internal coordination mechanisms:
Strategic Management Team (SMT)
This team consists of IT leaders in nineteen agencies and the IT functional leaders for infrastructure, desktops, helpdesk, field services, administrative areas, cross boundary initiatives, finance and human resources. The SMT uses the Enterprise IT Portfolio Governance and Management Model to align, review, and prioritize projects across the state enterprise. Their goals are to deliver better balance between different types of investments, ensure flexibility and agility to keep up with new or changing political priorities, and to gain consensus among a broad group of IT stakeholders.

The Core Enterprise Service Team (EST Core)
The EST Core is tasked with the tactical implementation of the plan that Strategic Management Team develops. The division leaders that report to the SMT executives make up the EST-Core. This team works together to ensure cross-agency functions and to assign specific resources and timelines to each deliverable of the Strategic Plan. The Enterprise Services Team (EST-Extended) then makes the strategic plan operational. These two teams work together to achieve several goals:

• Evaluate the progress made on previous plan commitments.
• Develop vision and mission statements for the agency.
• Complete SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis and review input from all other MDIT teams.
• Determine top agency business drivers.
• Take oversight responsibility for defined sections of the plan.
• Develop initiatives and targets for each IT plan goal.
• Measure the progress on key initiatives throughout the life of the plan.

Enterprise Architecture Core Team (EA Core)
The Office of Enterprise Architecture facilitates this cross-departmental team of MDIT technical leaders and specialists. The team includes appointed staff from all facets of the DIT organization: Contracts and Procurement, Enterprise Security, Office Automation Services, Telecommunications, Data Center Services and each software development group serving the state agencies. It has the authority to oversee the assessment, adoption, and use of technology in the state. They establish and utilize processes and procedures to assess technology needs across the four enterprise architecture framework areas. Decisions of the EA Core team are binding for the DIT organization, but are subject to review and approval by DIT executive management. The architects that make up the EA Core Team have several roles:

• Oversee and advise DIT architecture workgroups and standards development teams.
• Work with DIT Contract Office to establish the criteria for technology bids.
• Develop processes information dissemination and communication.
• Maintain and oversee the processes to select, review, evaluate, approve or deny, and prioritize EA, to include IT standards, policies, strategies, architectures, and guidelines.
• Conduct technical process engineering.
• Perform EA portfolio analysis.
• Oversee technology exception reviews.
• Review and evaluate vendor proposals.

Coordination Mechanisms

External coordination mechanisms:
Michigan Information Technology Executive Council (MITEC)
MITEC was established by the State CIO as an advisory body on current business, service, and technology support needs and to assist with development of longer-term IT goals. It is chaired by the State CIO and the membership consists of departmental deputy directors, administrative officers, or comparable level executives or administrators from each department; three representatives from the legislative branch; and one representative from the judicial branch.

Horizon and Spotlight Programs
The Horizon program provides the vendor community access to executive leadership on a monthly basis. Suppliers whose products match state priorities may provide brief presentations to the leadership team. The Spotlight Program provides an opportunity for suppliers to provide in-depth demonstrations to executives and subject matter experts.

Enterprise portfolio framework

Michigan Portfolio Assessment Framework
The Strategic Management Team (SMT) “uses the signature Michigan Portfolio Assessment Framework to create process and traceability, and to provide transparency into the IT investment decision making that builds the enterprise portfolio. This framework evaluates possible projects or investments using “Value” and “Risk” measures. A key tenet it that it is not focused on trying to define an absolute correct investment, but is designed to reflect an agreed consensus of the priorities of the SMT.

“A unique underpinning of the Michigan Portfolio Assessment Framework is that since public sector projects are often attached to policy positions or legal mandates that cannot be undone; the Risk profiles are a guide to which risk mitigation techniques must be applied, as opposed to which projects should be avoided. So the framework qualitatively measures the risk profile of each project to ensure the proper oversight levels from the portfolio monitoring that the SMT performs, as well as the project specific management and monitoring that Michigan’s Project Governance and Control Office model will provide.

“These Value and Risk scores provide enterprise priority to projects and are used by the Strategic Management Team to build their IT portfolio.

“The broad portfolio view better balances internal and customer directed investments, diversifies the risks while at the same time broadening the impact of successful emerging technologies, and enabling the identification of innovative cross boundary opportunities.”

Michigan submission to NASCIO 2007 Recognition Awards Category