Government Spending and Management

¶ … Technology and Software Identify How the Data Will Be Collected Before and the After Solution States Synthesis of data Research analysis and synthesis methods Discuss analysis and synthesis of measurement results Discuss findings of the measurement results Discussion and Conclusion on Approach (Week 4) Compilation of Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations (Week 5) The pace of technological development, inclusive of both hardware and software advances, has been rather unrelenting and chaotic in the last generation or two of modern human existence.

Whether it be in the West or the East, the rich nations or the poor, in Africa or in North America, the pace of change and evolution of technology and software has been very fast. However, one group and type of people that have problems keeping up at times are the governments. The unwillingness or inability to keep up can manifest in terms of enforcement, the laws that are on the books, the spending that is allocated to adding or updating software and so on.

Indeed, no less than the Internal Revenue Service in the United States was still using Windows XP as of a few years ago. The operating system is so old (circa 2001), it is not supported at all, let alone sold, by its creator Microsoft. Such lumbering, resistance or falling behind, however, can be very expensive and costly in ways including money and other currencies. Even so, budgets can ebb and flow along with who is in power, the economic fortunes of the jurisdiction in question and so on.

Thus, the question becomes how to best stay modernized and equipped in the digital age while at the same time being prudent and diligent about how the money is spent and how the related programs, both information technology-related and otherwise, are affected. Problem Identification, Impacts, Design of Research and Literature Research (Week 1) Problem There is an ever-greater reliance on Information Technology (IT) and organizational prowess in today's fast-paced business environment.

This sentiment particularly applies to organizations operating in the public sector, in which technology and data-driven applications are required to monitor increasing amounts and types of germane data. However, the effectiveness of organizational IT services and software asset management is oftentimes circumscribed by government spending. There is an innate tension between how much funds are budgeted and allocated to a particular organization and its ability to provide the sort of cutting-edge IT and software asset management services to do its job well.

The chief problem explored within this research study is how government spending influences IT services and software asset management in the FBI. Not enough spending limits the ability of this organization to use the digital resources it needs to perform its job functions. It is typically difficult for most public-sector entities to procure the funding necessary to enable them to operate at maximum capacity.

Statement of the Issue to Be Resolved The issue to be resolved is how to best demonstrate to funding organizations of the federal government that the FBI needs a certain amount of monies to support its IT infrastructure. This bureau constantly needs to update its infrastructure for IT in order to perform its basic safeguarding functionality for the United States of America. Without adequate funding it cannot help to ensure the safety of millions of Americans across the country.

The basic problem is this organization needs consistent funding for its IT services and software asset management, and it needs it in a timely manner which will enable it to perform well. Actually, getting this funding in a timely manner is difficult because of standard bureaucratic challenges. Impact of the Unresolved Issue The bureau will be disadvantageously impacted if the issue of regularly procuring the necessary funds to maintain and update its IT system is not resolved. Ultimately, its infrastructure will become unreliable.

Such unreliability will ineluctably lead to a lack of trust in the information technology and data which this organization requires to operate (Harper, 2016). Additionally, without a dependable IT system upon which to utilize, employees of the bureau should rely upon intuition and hunches instead of empirical data. It is critical to understand that the bureau necessitates information due to the classified nature of the work it conducts. If it is not able to consistently attain the funding to sustain its IT systems, national security will become compromised.

The risk is far too great to the country to allow such things to happen, especially when there is a readily available solution -- to simply disseminate the necessary funding for a contemporary, state of the art IT infrastructure upon which the very country itself can depend. Consequences of Not Resolving the Problem The negative consequences of not solving the problem of providing adequate funding to the bureau's IT solutions are considerable.

Firstly, they may allow its computing infrastructure to become much more susceptible to cyber-attacks and other forms of security breaches, which are consistently increasing (Osborne, 2015). Without funding to provision the most effectual security measures, valuable departmental data may become compromised. Furthermore, failing to issue the necessary funding for the FBI's IT infrastructure could result in a dearth of efficacy in the operation of this technology. By utilizing technology that is data, the bureau may not be able to access data as efficiently and regularly as it needs to.

Ramifications of this issue include reduced performance and increased difficulty in achieving organizational objectives. Additional negative consequences include a lack of coherent data governance, which can result in poor data quality and an overall lack of trust in the data yielded from existing IT systems. Moreover, failure to consistently procure the funding necessary to maintain state of the art IT systems can result in those systems becoming obsolete.

Qualitative Research The qualitative research for this paper will take the form of CTU's online library and other media resources such as Worldlibrary.org and Safaribooksonline.com. Articles and books written by industry experts for IT services and software asset management in the private and public sectors will be the focus of this research.

For example, consultants from the CMMI Institute has a lengthy history of involvement with public and government sector clients for comprehensive information assets management (Harper, 2014) and would be an important resource that can be leveraged for additional credibility. Fixed searches will be conducted on the necessary requirements for maintaining IT systems in the current age. They will also focus on security issues and the requisite architecture for ensuring IT services and software asset management needs are readily met.

Similarly, short interviews with current Bureau employees working in the IT services unit will be conducted and utilized to gain information regarding current IT systems and the processes involved in providing ITIL services. Additionally, those in managerial positions for this department will be solicited for their input, to denote what sort of bureaucratic measures typically arise when attempting to procure funding Bureau resources for such purposes.

Problem Impact and Findings from Research (Week 2) Government spending and budgetary concerns can have a substantial impact on IT Services and Software Asset Management in the FBI. Six recent article highlight that influence by providing the potential effects of government spending and how it plays a part in the actualization of services performed within this sector of the FBI. By analyzing the various findings and conclusions of each article, the recognition of certain factors at play will provide increased understanding of the overall situation.

Additional aspects of analysis like identification of underlying themes will also be covered. In "A review of state procurement and contracting", authors Bartle and Korosec explored the management of procurement and contracting activities by states. They decided to see if said management was effective in several key areas such as training, monitoring, delegation, and procurement. Through a multi-state survey, they discovered five key findings: 1. Some states struggle to adapt to the ever-changing information technology needs. 2. They noted most states need to improve staff training. 3.

Restrictions should be removed that prohibited 'best value' purchasing. 4. Improvement of practices and learning of new practices/guidelines can be gained from collaboration and increased communication between private organizations and governments. 5. The majority of states utilize a hybrid version of decentralized and centralized management structures for procurement and contracting (Bartle & Korosec, 2003). When compared to budgetary concerns, government spending can influence how often such agencies collaborate between each other leading to a second article that highlights weaknesses within such areas (procurement).

"Toward a more agile government: the case for rebooting federal IT procurement" by Balter, research in the article revealed the need to reboot IT procurement within the US federal government. "Like many government computer systems, the US federal information technology (IT) procurement model is slow, outdated, and long overdue for a reboot" (Balter, 2011, p. 149). While government spending in the 2010 fiscal year proved high in regards to IT procurement ($77.1 billion), most of the features and equipment procured are underutilized.

Estimated figures are almost 45% leading to Balter's conclusion that only one-third of procured IT features are used. This can amount to wasteful spending that can go to other areas of IT such as collaboration and communication with other agencies. Unlike the previous article, this article provided figures that created a realistic understanding of how the U.S. government spends money on IT. Another article that provides statistics on U.S. government spending on IT shows that the budget allotted for spending in that area has increased to $81 billion.

Unlike the other articles, Morrison explains the reason behind such spending is due to potential security threats. "The greatest direct threat to federal IT systems is unauthorized access (cyber-attack) to obtain information, undermine infrastructure, or seize their control. The media are replete with examples of these attacks, the sources of which include governments, competitors, criminals, and disgruntled employees" (Morrison, 2013, p. 749). This could explain why government spending has increased and how it may influence IT services and software asset management within the FBI.

If the FBI attempts to cull security threats with some coming from cyber-attacks, it would make sense the government spending trends would lead to higher spending in that area within key agencies or organizations like the FBI. Morrison also mentioned that the lack of monitoring and control of the IT supply chain may be the greatest indirect threat to IT systems within the federal government. Any potential kinks in the supply chain could lead to problems within the utilization of procured IT systems and features. A 1992 article covering U.S.

federal government management of information resources offers insight into the habits and behaviors of US federal government managers and the need for them to recognize the vital asset: information. Similar to the other article in the need to increase awareness of IT related problems, the article explains the need for reform in the U.S. federal government. Except, this time the area is not procurement but in utilization and protection of information. Major IRM functions that could prove useful in the development of effective organizational structures include: "1. policy, 2. planning, 3.

information management, and 4. data administration. The IRM staff at all levels plays a crucial role in determining how well and in what manner agencies will meet their information needs and missions" (Demarco, 1992, p. 6). If government spending focuses solely on procurement and not management of IT services as seen within the FBI and other related agencies/organizations, it could prove detrimental in the long run. The prevalent theme amongst all the articles discussed in this review is the wasteful spending by the U.S.

federal government in relation to IT procurement and management. A 2016 article by Williamson emphasizes such wasteful spending even further by identifying where the wasteful spending it going towards: the maintenance and updating of legacy/antiquated computer systems (Williamson, 2016). If government spending is wasteful with one of the main reasons being to maintain antiquated systems, shouldn't government spending go towards removing these systems and providing a new system that can handle security threats and come with easier maintenance? While the other five articles suggest U.S.

federal government spending and IT procurement is wasteful, an article by Iansiti suggests otherwise. "US government procurement guidelines have been refined to increase efficiency in purchasing by fostering competition and preventing agency problems and biased decision making" (Iansiti, 2012, p. 197). By examining pricing thresholds and performing a 138-participant survey, Iansiti gathered that free software could offer procurement officials a chance to sidestep established procurement best practices and thus diminish satisfaction and quality in supply chain.

Essentially, procurement practices may not need change, but what may need change is the sources of procurement of IT features. With information provided in the literature review the overall conclusion that I can gather my understanding is overall, the U.S. federal government is not only wasteful spending, but not properly managing the acquired IT features, leading to inefficiency within federal agencies/organizations like the FBI.

Should government spending move away from maintenance and updating of antiquated systems and instead the proper handling of information and new systems aimed to properly store and analyze such information, areas like IT services and software asset management in the FBI would see improvement. Furthermore, management and control of IT procurement from the supply chain perspective should be reevaluated. If users are using free software that does not go through the procurement process, it may lead to inefficiencies and potential problems in the maintenance of IT systems due to oversight.

The overall solution would be removal of antiquated systems, removal of free software, and guidelines to increase more use of IT features. This can solve the problem with wasteful spending and oversight issues. In terms of identifying and explaining my understanding of how to measure the success of the solution it would be in terms of percentage of IT procurement features used within the FBI. If the statistics show 80-90% of procured IT features used, then that would mean there is little in terms of wasteful spending.

One of the article in the literature review noted there was almost 45% of IT features not used within the federal government. This number needs to decrease by at least half. This would be an excellent marker for effectiveness towards implementation of solutions. Data Collection and Research, Analysis and Synthesis Methods (Week 3) Identification of the data needed The data needed are those which directly reflect the current state of the IT system for the bureau.

Specifically, these data will yield insight into the effectiveness of the IT services and software asset management of the bureau. They will seek to identify what gaps are existent between contemporary industry standards and the reality of the IT infrastructure the bureau is currently deploying. They will also demonstrate the strength of the research design by illustrating specifically how funding -- primarily in the form of maintenance and updates -- truly impacts the worth of the IT services and software management employed by this institution.

In this respect, there are multiple data types needed. There is the data required of the CMMI institute which will serve to evaluate the merit of the current IT infrastructure employed by the bureau. Specifically, the CMMI will deploy the Data Management Maturity model as an evaluation tool which is indicative of how the current IT and software management capabilities of the bureau measure up to industry standards. The second data type required is that of the IT professionals currently operating the bureau's infrastructure.

Specifically, their knowledge is required to temper the findings of the CMMI and to validate whether the findings of the former are truly indicative of the overall prowess of the infrastructure involved. Finally, those in charge of resource allocation will issue data to discern the likelihood of the bureau offering the financial support to corroborate the results of the first two groups.

Identify how the data will be collected before and the after solution The data from the CMMI will be collected from its consultants via the Data Management Maturity model. This data is both quantitative and qualitative in nature (Harper, 2014). The researchers will also conduct semi-structured interviews with these professionals to buttress the findings from the model. Therefore, the model results will serve as the means of designing questions for the consultants to add greater detail to those results.

The results of this initially gained data (from the CMMI consultants and the DMM model) will serve as the basis to prepare the semi-structured interview questions for the IT professionals which operate and monitor the bureau's current infrastructure. Lastly, the results of these professionals, aggrandized with the results from the CMMI, will serve as the basis to procure data from those in resource allocation positions within this institution.

Synthesis of data The aggregation of the data which stems from three different sources -- from the CMMI, from the bureau's IT staff and those in resource allocation positions -- is a vital part of the data gathering process.

There is a hierarchy of sorts of this synthesis, in which the initial data gleaned from the CMMI will function as a benchmark of sorts to evaluate the comparison between the bureau's IT services and software asset management and that which is necessary to remain competent in today's highly accelerated IT world.

The findings of those data and some of the more eminent data themselves will serve as the basis of garnering anymore data from the IT professionals to see if they agree with, refute, or can add to any of the CMMI's data. The comprehensive results of those data will serve as the basis to garner data from the third source to determine how realistic allocation of resources is to address the findings. Research analysis and synthesis methods The research analysis and synthesis methods involved for this study were quite specific.

The CMMI had quantitative results from its assessment, which demonstrated which specific areas the the bureau's IT infrastructure was remiss. It also indicated just where it was sufficient. This quantitative data was synthesized with the aforementioned qualitative interviews to provide an overview of how effective the overall infrastructure and software management actually was. This data formed the basis for the qualitative research conducted by IT professionals who evinced which areas they believed their infrastructure required additional support, and functioned as fodder for the subsequent interview.

Synthesizing these results allowed the researchers to determine salient themes in the data. Discuss analysis and synthesis of measurement results The analysis and synthesis of measurement results was largely predicated on the emergent themes from the research. They illustrated the need for increased data governance and intra-departmental transparency supported by robust provenance capabilities, which is essential to prudent data management (Harper, 2016). They also proved that the foregoing themes were considerable and required attention at a holistic level.

Discuss findings of the measurement results The primary findings were that a legacy of silo culture still existed within the bureau. Specifically, they attested to the fact that there were still too many data marts and project-based silos which exacerbated governance and became overly reliant on technology and personnel who, in some cases, were no longer with the department.

It was gleaned that tighter integration of data in a structured format in which both security and governance were preserved would benefit the IT infrastructure of this department -- which is beneficial to data management in general (Harper, 2016). In particular, semantic data lakes and their benefits were deemed a suitable fit for these issues. Discussion and Conclusion on Approach (Week 4) There appear to be room for improvement in the current situation at the FBI.

The results of the research indicated several potential areas of improvement, these concern the tangible and the intangible aspects of the department. The initial research clearly indicated the department was stretched, with several tensions in the way budgets were allocated and used. There can be little doubt the FBI will be under constant pressure to ensure their systems remain up to date in order to undertake its task, which support millions of Americans.

With the problems associated with the bureaucratic procedures, there are a number of dangers faced in the FBI, including the mismatch between the budget needs and the timing of the allocation and receipt of funds. The current system is aging, therefore, the solution suggested has been the development of a new, state of the art infrastructure, which will allow the division to operate efficiently, and avoid the issues which are inherently linked with the problems seen in the old incumbent infrastructure.

The literature review clearly indicated there was a significant level of inefficiency in terms of both funding and procurement, which is also resulting in the IT contracts not always obtaining the best value for money through a failure to manage acquired features, as currently as many as 45% of IT features are not being used. The research outcomes were highly aligned with the results and issues which were indicated as present in the literature review.

The findings support the need for a new state of the art infrastructure to be developed, seen with the primary research findings which clearly indicate a degree of fragmentation and numerous data marts and different project silos, a problem which also increased reliance on specific skills and personnel sets which could be increasingly difficult to access. Overall, the results demonstrated a lack of integration between the different systems, projects and functions.

The ongoing nature of these issues were not only creating problems, but maybe argued is likely to predict future problems, where the existing issues will become further exacerbated. The recommendation to implement a brand-new up-to-date data infrastructure may have some sort term costs which exceed existing budget forecast. However, when considering any investment it is necessary to consider the entire impact, not only the short-term impact, often considered through strategies such as the use of a cost benefit analysis or cost-effectiveness analysis (Holloway, 2015).

The literature review above has already demonstrated the problems associated with failing to act, problems which are not only economically difficult, but also politically and socially unacceptable. Therefore, some type of action has to be taken. By examining the results, it is apparent that the system needs continual updating, and that the existing approach is effectively a patchwork of different systems which are not always tied together in an efficient manner.

Therefore, the recommendation for implementation of a brand-new IT architecture/infrastructure will help to overcome many of the existing problems, as well as guard against future problems. For example, the development of a singular but highly integrated system would help to reduce the potential problem of reliance on a few very specialized personnel associated with the various individual projects or silos within the existing system.

The potential effectiveness of this solution is not only for the creation of a new system that can meet public expectations, but the ability to building the features and functions that are currently missing, such as facilitating a greater level of integration which will improve overall efficiency.

The application of semantic data lakes provides particular benefits in terms of their ability to deal with big data, and allow for meta data management and may be implemented with a forward-looking strategy to accommodate significant growth in the size and complexity of the data being managed. The new infrastructure should also include a revised and improved data governance which should be developed not only the consideration of the system, but with consideration of the users.

By developing both the system and the governance framework at the same time, there will be increased abilities to create processes that are intuitive for users and achieve their aims, the same time as being efficient, and meeting the legal and ethical requirements expected of a.