In order to help keep costs down, Department of Transportation Chief Information Officer Nitin Pradhan is leading a portfolio rationalization project in his office to help reduce operating costs and position the department for future growth, he wrote in a recent blog post on CIO.gov.
Pradhan said the project is aimed at keeping the department’s applications under control to allow more funding to go toward creating new capabilities instead of simply “keeping the lights on” in regards to the agency’s information technology.
“We want to create strategic value for our IT investments and optimize our environment as a business enabler,” Pradhan said. “In other words, portfolio rationalization is getting our portfolio healthy, while our governance and management will help it stay healthy. Operational efficiency is a key element of this goal, as is the effective use of resources.”
Portfolio rationalization will address several challenges that span many DOT modes:
- Cyber security planning and execution
- Establishing a comprehensive enterprise architecture program
- Cloud first strategy and data center consolidation
- Savings through shared services
- Focus on modular development and rapid program deployment
To keep the project on task, Pradhan said the agency will focus on aligning systems with departmental strategy and improving systems’ business effectiveness, including a strong use of customer surveys and feedback along with enterprise-level analysis and review through TechStat sessions and other methods.
“As we identify systems that are outdated, redundant, or provide low business value, we will either re-engineer or retire them,” Pradhan said. “Our goal in this process is to rationalize our resource allocation by rewarding and upgrading high-performance systems while retiring low-performance systems.”
Pradhan said the initiative goes beyond his office and the department is working the Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Senior Procurement Executive, and the DOT operating agencies to achieve a successful outcome.
