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Government Information Quarterly

Volume 14, Number 3 (1997)

Contents

DISCUSSION FORUM

The Literature on Government Information Policies, Practices,
and Services in the Coming Years--Topics Meriting Inclusion
Peter Hernon (with input from members of the Editorial Board) ............................................................ 221

Introduction
John Carlo Bertot and Charles R. McClure ...................................................... 231

The Impact of Federal IRM on Agency Missions:
Findings, Issues, and Recommendations
John Carlo Bertot ........................................................................ 235

Improving Federal Performance in the Information Era:
The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996
David L. McClure ......................................................................................... 255

Key Issues Affecting the Development of Federal IRM:
A View from the Trenches
John Carlo Bertot and Charles R. McClure ................................................................................. 271

Assessing the Information Technology Management Reform Act
from a Bureau's Perspective
John Beachboard ................................................................................ 291

SPECIAL FEATURE

Local Government and IRM:
Policy Emerging from Practice
Patricia Diamond Fletcher .................................................................................... 313

About the Authors ........................................................................................ 325

Reviews ....................................................................................................... 327

For nearly two decades, the federal government has embraced Information Resources Management (IRM) as a philosophy, policy initiative, and management practice. During this time, IRM has undergone major management transformations within agencies and throughout the IRM policy environment. To date, however, there had been no government-wide assessment of IRM's impact on agency mission attainment, particularly through a strategic planning process. This article presents findings from a government-wide study to, in part, measure the extent to which IRM assists agencies achieve their missions and objectives, identify a general agency strategic planning model, and determine whether agency strategic planning efforts facilitate the alignment of agency business processes and information technology (IT).

David L. McClure

The federal government's track record on the management of information and information technology (IT) is mixed at best. Under tighter budgets, a downsized workforce, and higher performance and service expectations, the value of better information management and technology to public agencies should intensify. This article discusses the opportunities and challenges facing federal executives and managers as they move to implement recent legislative and executive branch reforms designed to improve federal IT management and acquisition practices.

John Carlo Bertot
Charles R. McClure

The policy environment that affects the management of infon-nation resources has expanded rapidly between 1993-1996. This article provides a brief description of the current context for federal Information Resources Management (IRM), reviews key policy instruments that prescribe IRM-related activities, presents findings from a focus group session of federal officials with responsibilities for IRM-related activities, an concludes by offering a number of directions for IRM as it moves into the 2 1 st century. The notion of IRM, while still important, appears to be developing and evolving into a range of federal positions beyond those traditionally labeled as IRM.

John C. Beachboard

Over the last three years numerous top-down driven policy initiatives have been developed in response to continuing problems identified with federal information technology (IT) management. These initiatives have generated considerable debate within the federal government concerning whether the new initiatives will prove more effective than previous policies. This article discusses some preliminary findings from a study exploring the implications of govemment-wide IT policies on IT management practices. The article discusses several with recently promulgated IT policies that were identified by bureau-level IT managers and offers some suggestions to federal officials charged with information technology management and oversight.

Patricia Diamond Fletcher

The response to federal information resources management (IRM) initiatives at the local levels of government has been minimal. While this concept and requirement has been on the federal agenda since the 1970s, it has not successfully diffused to the city and county levels of government. This does not reflect, however, mismanagement of their information resources. Rather, it is indicative of a bottom-up development of information technology management. A history of trying out many different approaches to information resources management has enabled local governments to evolve practices, and in some cases, policies, that fit their needs.

Local governments are concerned with the provision of information and services to a citizenry who are also local, not distant and once removed, as at the federal level. This more direct need for access to information and real-time service delivery has led to the evolution of local information management responses which meet these needs in a timely fashion. The value of information is seen in its ability to create access to government and to insure the provision of services to the local public.

This article will examine the range and forms of IRM practiced in city and county governments. It will examine IRM as initially instituted at the federal level and analyze the resultant management practices at the local level. The variables which lead to differences in practice will be discussed. The data come from case study results, surveys, and telephone interviews with top level managers in U.S. cities and counties.

About the Authors

John C. Beachboard is a doctoral student and research associate at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University. In collaboration with Charles R. McClure and John Carlo Bertot, he has recently completed research on a National Science Foundation grant to analyze and develop "Policy Initiatives and Strategies for Enhancing the Role of Public Libraries in the National Information Infrastructure (NII)." His research interests include all aspects of telecommunications and information technology management and policy. Prior to beginning his graduate work in information management, Beachboard had 15 years of combined experience in government and industry designing and implementing large-scale telecommunications and information systems. He received a M.S. degree from Boston University in Business Administration and a M.S. in Information Resources Management from Syracuse University.

John Carlo Bertot is Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County, where he teaches courses in federal and state government information management and policies, telecommunications policy, and management information systems. He completed his Ph. D. Degree in Information Studies from Syracuse University. He has written extensively on topics related to information policy and information resources management, most recently contributing chapters on these topics, with Charles R. McClure, in Federal Information Policies in the 1990s (Ablex Publishing Corp., 1996). He is currently Co-Principal Investigator, with Charles R. McClure, of a national study assessing cost factors associated with public library use of the Internet.

Patricia Diamond Fletcher is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County. She is also a Faculty Associate at the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and research, where she is currently completing a two-year study of municipal governments and information technology innovation. Prior to this, she was involved in national studies of information management at the county and state government levels. Fletcher conducts workshops on strategic information technology planning and management, and on performance measures and benchmarking for government agencies.

Charles R. McClure is Distinguished Professor of Information Studies at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University. He has received a number of honors for his research and has been the recipient of numerous research grants. He currently is completing, with William Moen as Co-Principal Investigator, as assessment of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS). With John Carlo Bertot he co-authored a two-volume report that assessed the Maryland State-wide Network, SAILOR. His most recent book is Assessing the Academic Networked Environment (Coalition for Networked Information, 1996).

David L. McClure is the Assistant Director for Strategic Information Management Issues in the General Accounting Office's (GAO) IRM Policy and Issues Group. He has led GAO research efforts on private and public sector practices in information management, information technology (IT) investment and capital planning analysis, and IT performance metrics. His work has resulted in GAO's highly requested report on strategic information management "best practices" entitled Executive Guide: Improving Mission Performance through Strategic Information Management and Technology. For the past few years, he has worked with key congressional committees and the executive branch on changes to federal laws and policy guidance, including the Information Management Technology Reform Act (or Clinger-Cohen Act) of 1996. He also led the development of management assessment tools and techniques designed to improve the direction, quality, and impact of governmentwide IT management. Before joining GAO, Dr. McClure taught courses in public policy and quantitative research methods at the University of Texas at Arlington and North Texas State University. He is a former Presidential Management Intern and served as an analyst for the senate Budget Committee. He has worked with senior executives in over 10 federal agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Health Care Financing Administration in evaluating strategic information management issues and designing IT-related management improvement plans. Dr. McClure has undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of North Texas.

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