White House is set to unveil guidance on IT purchases

The White House is poised to announce changes to the way agencies buy about $80 billion in information technology annually.

The guidance, which the Office of Management and Budget will release on Nov. 19, represents the culmination of four months of meetings with agency IT chiefs and a close examination of troubled technology investments, OMB officials said. Leaders of the industry group the Professional Services Council, who met with OMB officials last week, said the new strategy likely will be similar to legislation proposed by Sens. Thomas Carper (D-Delaware) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) that passed the Senate in May. The bill (S. 920) would require project managers to alert chief information officers quickly of investments that have veered off course on cost, schedule or performance. Under the proposal, CIOs who see deviances of at least 20 percent must report them to their agency heads, relevant congressional committees and OMB. More extreme cases -- projects that are off target by at least 40 percent -- would spark remedial action, such as cancellation. Much of this information would be tracked on a public website similar to the Obama administration's IT Dashboard.