The DHS CIO has a significant role to play in guiding IT resources and capabilities to fulfill the department's diverse missions. The enormous task of creating one network and one infrastructure to ensure IT connectivity among the department's 22 legacy organizations is daunting. In this context, some of the CIO's challenges are to implement an enterprise architecture; standardize and integrate the department's many duplicative systems and tools; and institute a program to address the risks and vulnerabilities facing DHS' IT systems.
Despite these key responsibilities, the CIO is not a member of the senior management team with authority to strategically manage department-wide technology assets and programs. There is no formal reporting relationship between the DHS CIO and the CIOs of major component organizations, which hinders department-wide support for his central IT direction. Further, the CIO has limited staff resources to assist in carrying out the planning, policy formation, and other IT management activities needed to support departmental units. These deficiencies in the IT organizational structure are exemplified by the CIO's lack of oversight and control of all DHS' IT investment decision-making. Instead, there is a reliance on cooperation and coordination within DHS' CIO Council2 to accomplish department-wide IT integration and consolidation objectives.
