- IT security
- IT infrastructure
- IT management
- Resources
- IT workforce
- Application systems
The theme of this year's survey, Learning from the Past, Transitioning to the Future, focuses on the transition of the federal government from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.
"Many of the challenges facing federal CIOs today carry over from previous years -- along with some progress and an increased understanding of the issues," said Phil Bond, president of TechAmerica. "Now more than ever, a partnership between the public and private sectors in leveraging IT to achieve a more transparent government is essential to securing the public's safety."
As in past surveys, a key line of inquiry was to discern the top priority challenges faced by the CIOs. Once again, IT security was reported to be the top challenge. All of the CIOs reported an active, engaged effort to continue to bolster the security of their systems and networks.
Other issues highlighted in the survey include:
- IT Infrastructure: According to the CIOs interviewed for this report, IT infrastructure, consolidation, standardization and modernization provide a rare opportunity to improve IT security, improve reliability and customer service, manage costs and even reduce the carbon footprint created by the energy consumption of IT. All of them had IT infrastructure as a high priority and expected to continue with their plans to implement improvements.
- IT Management: The overall position of the CIOs interviewed was that the CIO position has continued to gain strength, although the CIO position at specific agencies sometimes lost ground because of personnel changes or significant failures. The rationale for this was that the Clinger-Cohen Act has had success in defining an important role for CIOs and that the continued improvement of IT management practices, especially around investment decisions, has given the CIOs increased credibility.
- Resources: In recent years, CIOs interviewed were concerned about their continuing challenges with making ends meet with what they see as inadequate resources. That trend continued this year, as resources were again deemed a priority challenge. The concerns expressed were similar to last year. The notion of doing more with less is becoming more difficult: CIOs believe that their ability to implement efficiencies and squeeze out additional performance is becoming more difficult, because much of the "low hanging fruit" has already been addressed.