Managing Technology Change: Challenges and Opportunities for the United
States Senate (Testimony, 12/07/95, GAO/T-AIMD-96-25).

The United States Senate, as it increases its use of information
technology, is in an excellent position to profit from the experiences
of organizations that have used computers and automation to improve
their operations. This testimony, which draws on many years of GAO work
on information resources management issues, makes three main points.
First, although the Senate is a unique institution, it is similar enough
to private and public sector organizations to make learning from their
experiences useful. Second, information technology offers many
opportunities for the Senate and the entire legislative branch to
improve its services to constituents, its accessibility to the public,
its legislative processes and decisionmaking, and its committee and
public operations. Legislatures around the world are using information
technology to improve these same areas. Third, GAO's analysis of
successful public and private organizations underscores the need for key
management practices that can spell the difference between success and
failure in using information technology to improve performance. The key
is to develop the organizational strategy and support needed to harness
the power of information technology and avoid the costly mistakes that
others have made.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-AIMD-96-25
     TITLE:  Managing Technology Change: Challenges and Opportunities 
             for the United States Senate
      DATE:  12/07/95
   SUBJECT:  Information resources management
             Computer networks
             Computerized information systems
             Information dissemination operations
             Strategic information systems planning
             Productivity
             Legislative bodies
             Paperwork
             Reengineering (management)
IDENTIFIER:  North Carolina OPEN/Net Program
             Internet
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Committee on Rules and Administration
United States Senate

For Release on Delivery
Expected at
9:30 a.m.
Thursday,
December 7, 1995

MANAGING TECHNOLOGY CHANGE -
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR
THE UNITED STATES SENATE

Statement of Christopher W.  Hoenig
Director, Information Resources Management/
Policies and Issues
Accounting and Information Management Division

GAO/T-AIMD-96-25

GAO/AIMD-96-25T


(999925)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV


============================================================ Chapter 0

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

I am pleased to be here today as you begin this important new effort
to help capture the full potential of the information age for the
United States Senate.  In our work over the years, we have found that
real improvements in the use of information technology begin when the
top executives of an organization make a personal commitment to take
action on this critical issue.  This Committee is to be commended for
its initiative in the area and its continuing commitment to use
technology effectively to further the mission of the Senate. 


   OVERVIEW
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

The information age is filled with opportunities and fraught with
perils.  During the past 15 years, GAO has reviewed hundreds of
information management issues in virtually all federal agencies.  We
have uncovered many examples of how hundreds of millions of tax
dollars have been wasted on technology projects that have not met the
critical needs of federal agencies.  We have seen good ideas for the
use of information technology fail to bear fruit because of poor
management at both the senior executive and project management level. 

But we have also seen important successes.  Our work with leading
private sector and state organizations has taught us how they used
information technology to dramatically reduce costs of operations,
improve their response time to their customers, and increase the
quality of their products and services. 

The good news is that there are many lessons to be learned about how
to manage technology effectively.  As you create your own agenda for
the information age, you are in an excellent position to profit from
the experiences of successful organizations and the lessons they have
learned. 

Today, I would like to discuss the following three issues: 

  -- First, although the Senate has characteristics that make it a
     unique institution, it does have enough similarities to private
     and public sector organizations to make learning from their
     experience useful. 

  -- Second, information technology offers many opportunities for the
     Senate and the entire legislative branch to improve its services
     to constituents, its accessibility to the public, its
     legislative processes and decision-making, and its committee and
     office operations.  Legislatures around the country and the
     world are using information technology to make improvements in
     many of these same areas. 

  -- Third, our research of successful public and private
     organizations highlights the need for key management practices
     that can spell the difference between success and failure in
     using information technology to achieve performance
     improvements.  The key lies in developing the organizational
     strategy and support needed to harness the power of information
     technology and avoid the costly mistakes that others have made. 


   ALTHOUGH UNIQUE, THE SENATE
   FACES ISSUES SIMILAR TO OTHERS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

Unlike other organizations, an elected legislature is unique.  The
types of decisions that the Senate makes through its legislative,
oversight, and appropriations functions involve complex factors with
huge implications for the whole country and the world.  The flow of
information in and around the Senate is unceasing, complex, and
difficult to manage. 

At the same time, however, the Senate and the legislative branch as a
whole have similarities to other organizations in requiring numerous
business and administrative processes to conduct their work..  These
include: 

  -- internal customers (committees, members, and staff) and external
     customers (interest groups and constituents) who have a wide
     variety of needs that hinge on the exchange of information. 

  -- decision-making responsibilities which need to be supported by
     timely, quality information,

  -- work processes that structure how it functions --whether through
     lawmaking, oversight, or appropriations--to produce outputs,
     such as laws, oversight actions, funding decisions, and
     constituent services, and

  -- the need to maximize the effectiveness and productivity of the
     legislative and support operations--such as financial
     management, accounting, payroll, capital equipment and services
     management--through which the Senate, the committees, and
     members' offices conduct and manage their day-to-day business. 

In all of these areas, the effective use of information technology
can play a key role in improving timeliness and quality, as well as
reducing costs. 


   OPPORTUNITIES TO USE
   INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ARE
   GROWING, AS IS THE URGENCY TO
   TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

Organizations that are leaders in the use of information technology
to support their missions have achieved impressive improvements in
their performance and competitiveness.  Along with these
opportunities comes a sense of urgency to take advantage of them.  In
the private sector, the need to remain competitive has led
organizations to push ahead of their rivals by managing information
with technology that helps to provide better products and services at
lower cost, and that allows the business to be more responsive to
their customers. 

In the public sector, the need to cut the cost of government and
streamline operations is creating this same sense of urgency to use
information technology to best advantage.  There is a large and
widening gap between the public's expectations for efficient, modern
service and the government's performance--a gap that is undermining
the credibility of our institutions.  Further, declining budgets and
shrinking workforces have created the need to do more with less. 
Changes in the relationships between the executive agencies and state
and local governments, such as the increased use of block grants,
also call for new approaches to the way the federal government works. 

There are many areas where technology can be used to promote
excellence in the operations of the Senate, its committees, and
members and to address some of these pressures for change. 
Additionally, opportunities exist throughout the legislative branch
for selected common technology initiatives that can improve
collaboration and integration.  Here are a few examples. 


      IMPROVING CONSTITUENT
      SERVICES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.1

Private sector organizations, as well as some federal and state
agencies, are using information technology to make dramatic
improvements in customer service.  There are many familiar examples
in this area.  Automated Teller Machines give customers access to
their bank accounts 24 hours a day.  Mail order firms take orders any
time of day.  Leading organizations have established single points of
contact for customers to resolve problems during a single telephone
call.  Overnight deliveries can be tracked in real time. 

Private sector improvements in service have greatly raised the
expectations of the public.  As a result, the public is becoming
increasingly impatient with government offices that take days, weeks,
or months to resolve a problem or provide a piece of information. 
The public's growing expectation to deal with a single point of
contact and get quality problem resolution is leading them to be
intolerant of bureaucratic office procedures that result in being
handed off from one employee to another or superficial responses. 
The opportunities to provide better service, coupled with customers'
growing expectations for quick, quality service, have obvious
implications for how the Senate deals with its constituents. 

  -- Some legislative chambers such as the California, Louisiana,
     Michigan, and Missouri Senates have constituent management
     systems that can provide features such as text processing,
     correspondence tracking, office budgeting, and voter lists. 
     Correspondence tracking features can provide information on
     cases, constituent contacts, and case resolution.  A growing
     number of legislators have individual Internet electronic mail
     accounts that enable correspondence with constituents.  In
     Vermont, constituents can contact their legislators through a
     single Internet address maintained in the office of the
     Sergeant-at-Arms. 

The ability of the Senate to provide high-quality constituent
services absolutely depends on the effective use of information
technology.  This goes far beyond installing desktop computers and
establishing electronic communications within the Senate and between
members' Washington offices and home offices.  It involves the
ability of members and staff to rapidly access and integrate the
information needed to resolve constituent concerns, whether the
information sources are in the Senate, an executive branch
department, a regional office, a state agency, or a member's home
office. 


      ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF
      DECISION-MAKING THROUGH
      BETTER INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.2

Good decisions depend on relevant, high-quality information being
provided to the right people at the right time.  Information
technology is a tremendous tool for improving decision-making. 
Technology provides new means of navigating the sea of information
that surrounds the Senate, and extracting what is pertinent and
relevant to the specific issues at hand.  Automated research tools,
for example, can help committees, members, and staff to access and
manipulate a growing number of computerized sources of information
and opinion.  Obtaining information quickly is becoming more and more
essential to the Senate, given the rapid pace of events and the
variety of issues that must it must deal with.  By speeding up access
to quality information, information technology can greatly increase
the ability get the right information to the right people, at the
right time, in a form that is most useful to the members. 

  -- Technology is being used in a number of state legislative
     chambers to help handle the growing volume and complexity of
     information and to use legislators' time more efficiently.  For
     example, following the lead of the Michigan Senate, which was
     the first to install personal computers for legislators' use on
     the floor, an increasing number of states are making personal
     computers available to legislators to use in legislative
     chambers to access amendments, bills, other legislative
     information, and electronic mail.  Most states have selected
     portable computers for legislators' use so as not to change the
     historic nature of their chambers.  Indiana selected wireless
     laptop computers for legislators to use in the chamber because
     of the difficulty of installing wiring in the historic capital
     building. 

Innovations such as executive information systems, for instance,
could help give members and staff ready access to critical
information and analysis.  Up to date information on agency
performance could be accessed electronically in real time, rather
than relying on annual reports or special requests for such data. 
Just as important, the format of the information can be customized to
the special needs of individual members. 


      OPPORTUNITIES TO REDUCE
      COSTS AND INCREASE THE REACH
      OF THE SENATE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.3

The nation's rapidly growing information infrastructure provides the
Senate and its members with many opportunities to increase its
ability to deal more directly with the American people on a regular
basis and reduce the costs of doing so. 

The Senate can continue to develop its use of the Internet to provide
the public with timely information on Senate activities at an
insignificant cost.  Electronic bulletin boards provide additional
opportunities for Senators, interest groups, and constituents to
exchange viewpoints and information. 

  -- The State of Hawaii has an on-line computer service that
     provides governmental and educational information to citizens
     across the state's 1,500 mile arc of scattered islands via
     toll-free access by personal computers or computers installed in
     schools, public libraries, and selected state buildings.  This
     service includes the Hawaii State Legislature's information
     service which enables citizens to access the text of bills,
     resolutions, notices, and committee reports; status, sponsor,
     and voting information for any measure; and descriptions of the
     legislative process and how citizens can participate in it. 
     Additionally, an interactive electronic networking service
     allows residents to communicate with legislators and other
     citizens using electronic mail and electronic conferencing. 

Equally exciting are the opportunities for interactive communications
to break down the perceived isolation of Washington from the rest of
the country.  Senate committee hearings, for example, can use video
technology to include a greater variety of witnesses at less cost to
both the Senate and the witnesses in terms of time and travel
dollars.  At GAO, for example, we have used video conferencing
between our Washington and field offices to save hundreds of
thousands of dollars in travel costs.  Video "town meetings" can
greatly increase the personal contact of Senators with their
constituents.  Technology can be an important tool for individual
members to keep close touch with grass root perceptions and concerns,
and inform constituents about their positions and decisions,
particularly in distant or rural areas. 

  -- The State of North Carolina through its OPEN/net program
     provides citizens with live satellite broadcasts of state
     government events, as well as special programming, and follow-up
     viewer call-in sessions.  OPEN/net provides North Carolina
     residents with heightened access to state and local government
     officials by offering one hour of unedited coverage of state
     government meetings on cable television, followed by one hour of
     interactive viewer phone-ins to question or respond to the
     meeting's officials.  Thus, citizens have the opportunity to
     receive information, instruction, and services directly from
     state leaders while also being able to ask questions, make
     suggestions, and influence the officials.  Additionally,
     OPEN/net has expanded its offerings to include a call-in program
     on state-wide issues and a program on national issues.  The
     State of Minnesota and the State of Washington have adopted
     similar versions of the network. 

In addition to enhancing contact with constituents, information
technology can also increase the speed of interaction with a
proliferating number of national, local, and international news
services, who routinely gather information electronically.  Internet
WEB pages, for example, can provide quick dissemination of press
releases and news items. 


      GETTING THINGS DONE FASTER
      AND BETTER
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3.4

Information technology offers many opportunities to speed up
information exchange and facilitate decision-making and production
processes.  On an elementary level, for example, it is no longer
necessary to base work processes on the physical flow of paper from
office to office, and from person to person.  Drafts, documents, and
correspondence can be reduced to electronic format and transmitted
anywhere instantaneously, whether across the hall of a Senate office
building, from a committee to a federal agency, or from Capital Hill
to a Senator's home office.  This can greatly increase
responsiveness, speed up decision-making, and enormously reduce the
burden of managing huge amounts of paper. 

  -- Increasingly, state legislatures are drafting bills and other
     legislative documents using desktop computers that are usually
     networked.  Off-the-shelf software, some of which can include
     capability to research and access state laws and track bills, is
     used for bill drafting.  Some state legislatures, such as North
     Carolina and Wisconsin, use commercial word processing or
     desktop publishing software for photocomposition of bills.  Many
     states use customized or commercial software for bill status
     systems that track all actions and all versions of bills and
     resolutions.  A number of states, including Arizona and
     Virginia, have integrated bill drafting and bill status systems
     that can provide authoring, amendment processing, calendaring,
     publishing, printing, and viewing functions and support the
     creation of Internet-ready bills.  In Virginia, the General
     Assembly has been able to reduce staffing for data entry, cut
     down on the amount of paper used, and reduce the amount of
     filing space required for printed documents. 

Such state-level examples have obvious applications to speeding up
the process of drafting and marking up a piece of legislation in
Senate committees and managing the flow of legislation and
information through the Senate. 


   THE SENATE CAN BENEFIT FROM THE
   LESSONS LEARNED BY LEADING
   PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR
   ORGANIZATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4

The biggest issue in taking advantage of information technology is
not identifying opportunities to use it.  Rather, the challenge is to
organize an institution to take advantage of technology.  An
organization's capability to manage technology effectively must be in
proportion to what it is trying to achieve.  Ambitious technology
plans require a disciplined, integrated management approach.  This is
the greatest lesson to be learned from organizations that have been
successful in using information technology to dramatically improve
their performance. 

Leading organizations have found, through experience, that
successfully taking advantage of information technology depends on
using a consistent set of management practices to improve mission
performance.\1 Although these organizations applied these practices
in different management settings, our case study work shows a strong
association between their consistent, effective use and successful
performance outcomes. 

Several of these practices have been embodied in federal law and
regulation.  For example, many are incorporated into the latest
revision of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Circular
A-130, which establishes major governmentwide policies for managing
information technology.  The recently reauthorized Paperwork
Reduction Act also contains specific provisions embodying these
practices.  In addition, we have used these practices as a framework
for helping several federal agencies improve their information
management activities. 


--------------------
\1 These practices are described in our report entitled Executive
Guide:  Improving Mission Performance Through Strategic Information
Management and Technology--Learning From Leading Organizations
(GAO/AIMD-94-115, May 1994). 


      INVOLVING TOP LEADERSHIP
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1

In the information age, top executives have the responsibility not
only to define the business goals of the organization, but also to
initiate, mandate, and facilitate major changes in information
management to support the achieving of mission goals. 

The first lesson for the effective use of information technology,
therefore, is to get the organization's top executives personally
involved in understanding the relative costs, benefits, risks, and
returns associated with information technology investments they are
making decisions about.  Unless top executives make these linkages,
meaningful change can be slow and sometimes nearly impossible.  In
leading organizations, top executives make a personal commitment to
improve the use of information technology and get their line managers
and staff involved in critical information management decisions. 
Information technology has become so central to improving business
operations that its management cannot be left exclusively to the
technical staff.  For the Senate, this means that Senators need to
consider who will take on leadership roles in determining the
strategic direction for the use of technology to support operations. 

  -- Driven by budget constraints, one chief executive in our case
     study sample benchmarked existing systems development
     capabilities against industry standards.  The CEO discovered
     that the company was only getting a small fraction of expected
     benefits from systems investments, while taking twice as long
     and four times the resources to deliver these systems compared
     to an industry standard.  To correct this, the CEO fostered
     partnerships between business unit managers and IT professionals
     that focused on building information systems with measurable
     benefits.  Within 3 years, some tangible payoffs from this
     approach were occurring.  Returns on information technology
     investments rose from $2 million to $20 million per year,
     applications development and productivity improvements increased
     steadily, and staff resources were moved from maintaining
     existing computer applications to more strategic, reengineering
     development and support. 

It is also a critical practice for top leadership to take action and
maintain momentum behind the efforts being used to achieve real
improvements.  Taking advantage of technology means adopting new
techniques, new work processes, and new ways of doing business.  The
organizational change that this entails typically encounter many
barriers.  Top leadership involvement is needed to overcome these
barriers, create incentives for change, educate the organization, and
set strategic direction, goals, and milestones.  This hearing today
is a good example of how the Senate can begin creating the momentum
for change. 

It is important that executives and line managers have the skills and
knowledge to identify important information issues and opportunities. 
In the Senate, committees, individual members, and their
staff--working with the Senate's information technology
professionals--will need to consider how much time to invest in
defining the specific business requirements and processes that need
to be supported by information systems.  Without this involvement, it
will be impossible to create a focus on achieving lasting improvement
in information management. 


      FOCUSING ON IMPROVING
      BUSINESS PROCESSES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2

New technology, in and of itself, will not improve performance or
solve problems.  It is merely a tool--albeit a powerful one--that
supports work processes.  If these processes are inherently
inefficient, then technology will have little substantive impact. 
Leading organizations know that accomplishing dramatic improvements
in performance requires streamlining or fundamentally redesigning
work processes. 

Consequently, information technology initiatives must be focused on
improving the way work is done, rather than automating outmoded work
processes.  The Senate needs to determine which business processes
are most susceptible to improvement with information technology and
what the appropriate performance goals are.  Information systems
projects that do not consider business process reengineering
typically reach only a fraction of their potential.  Using business
process reengineering to drive information systems initiatives can
lead to order-of-magnitude improvements in customer satisfaction and
cost savings, rather than the marginal efficiency gains common with
initiatives that use technology to do the same work, the same
way--only faster. 

  -- In one company, long customer waits and unacceptable error and
     rework rates were threatening successful business growth. 
     Business unit executives and information technology
     professionals worked together to redesign existing work
     processes and systems.  As a result, a customer process that
     used to involve 55 people, 55 procedural steps, and a 14-day
     service delivery was reduced to one person, one phone call, one
     step with a 3-day service delivery. 

Using technology for process improvement efforts requires
consideration of the technical platform, or architecture, of the
information systems.  If several process improvement efforts are
pursued in an unintegrated fashion, they may result in the creation
of many new information systems that are isolated from each other. 
This fragmentation may seriously inhibit the organization's ability
to share information assets or leverage the benefits of new
technology across the organization.  It can lead to duplication of
systems and data that will lower productivity and waste money. 
Rapidly evolving technologies, such as networking and imaging, that
have organizationwide impact need to be integrated systematically
into redesigned work processes.  For example, to maximize the
benefits of process improvements across an entire organization and
reduce risks, it is vital to establish certain shared standards and
rules for processes, data, and components.  The importance of
developing and managing an integrated information architecture is one
reason why sound strategic information planning is so critical. 


      ESTABLISHING A STRATEGIC
      INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
      PROCESS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3

As noted above, information technology is a means to an end.  Unless
an organization defines specifically where it wants to go and what it
wants to achieve, the infusion of technology will do little to
improve performance or achieving critical goals.  At the leading
organizations we reviewed, their strategic business and information
system plans were almost always linked to satisfying explicit,
high-priority customer needs.  This emphasis on fulfilling customer
needs helps an organization understand the sources, nature, and
priority of the demands on its resources. 

Customers can be broken down into two groups:  outsiders with whom
the organization interacts and serves (external customers) and people
within the organization (internal customers).  The needs of both
groups will be different and must be identified and assessed in order
to develop an effective business plan and strategic information plan. 
In the Senate's case, the external customers include interest groups,
constituents, and other parties interested in learning about the
Senate's activities and providing input to the legislative process. 
Internal customers include members, committees, and staff. 

  -- In one state revenue collection agency we examined, they decided
     to use the external customer--the taxpayer--as the focus for
     rethinking and redesigning its services.  Using customer focus
     groups, comprised of individual taxpayers, small businesses, and
     large corporations, they redesigned the revenue collection
     process.  Information systems and technology were used to
     maintain customer profiles to assist the agency in responding to
     questions, problems, and special situations for each taxpayer. 

Following a customer-driven approach as a basis for strategic
information planning provides a sound basis for developing accurate,
detailed descriptions of requirements and specifications for
designing and developing information systems.  Prioritizing these
requirements allows strategic information planning to focus on the
most important customer needs and mission goals. 


      LINKING TECHNOLOGY
      INVESTMENT TO PERFORMANCE
      MEASUREMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.4

Leading organizations have scarce resources to spend on information
technology.  Consequently, they make sure that they get a high return
on their dollar investments in technology.  They expect meaningful
bottom-line improvements in the outcomes of key business processes
that are critical to meeting mission goals, reducing operational
costs, and satisfying their customers.  For this reason, they
carefully measure the performance of their processes, including the
contribution of technology to them. 

Part of performance measurement involves identifying the key business
processes are that produce the products and service delivered to
customers.  By focusing on these processes, an organization can
direct its attention and resources to areas that are most likely to
yield dramatic improvements in outcomes meaningful to customers,
rather than on low value, internally-focused activities.  Equally
important, successful organizations rely heavily on performance
measures to operationalize mission goals and objectives, quantify
problems, evaluate alternatives, allocate resources, track progress,
and learn from mistakes.  These measures can focus on quality of
program outcomes, resource consumption, elapsed time ("cycle time")
of specific work processes, activities, or transactions. 

  -- One leading organization uses a "portfolio" investment
     process--based on explicit decision criteria for assessing
     costs, benefits, and risks--to select, control, and evaluate
     information systems projects.  As a consequence of more
     carefully scrutinizing proposed benefits and measuring actual
     performance results, the organization witnessed a 14-fold
     increase in the return on investment from information systems
     projects within 3 years. 

Focusing on desired performance outcomes helps successful
organizations to manage information systems projects as investments,
rather than expenses.  These projects are viewed as mission
improvement efforts, with senior management being personally involved
in project selection, control, and evaluation.  The basis for
deciding whether to fund a project involves an explicit set of
criteria for assessing the mission benefits, risks, and costs of each
project.  With a disciplined investment process, organizations can
identify early--and avoid--investments in projects with low potential
to provide mission benefits.  Conversely, without a centralized
process to select, control, and evaluate information system projects
as investments, organizations have become entangled in a host of
difficult problems, such as major unmanaged development risks,
low-value or redundant projects, and an overemphasis on maintaining
old systems at the expense of using technology to redesign outmoded
work processes.  The Senate will need to consider what types of
performance measures and investment management will be required to
assure members they will get the most for their technology dollar. 


      ESTABLISHING AN
      ORGANIZATIONAL FOCUS FOR
      INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.5

Senators and their staff should consider the benefits of having one
place to go for help and advice on technology issues both in the
Senate and the legislative branch.  Having a single organizational
focal point greatly aids the process of defining, debating, and
resolving the many issues involved in defining strategic information
goals and user needs, managing information assets, and establishing
technical standards.  This single organizational focal point is
particularly important in establishing and maintaining an integrated
approach to information technology--one that promotes and maximizes
the efficient and effective use of information resources. 

Leading organizations have found that one important means for
establishing a clear organizational focus for information management
is to position a Chief Information Officer (CIO) as a senior partner
with the organization's top executives.  The CIO's main job is to
help build an organizationwide capability to manage information and
technology effectively.  A CIO serves as a bridge between top
executives, line management, support staff, and information
technology professionals.  The CIO advises top executives and senior
managers on major technology decisions and investments.  The CIO also
plays a lead role in working with managers to define the role of
information management in supporting the organization's mission,
designing and managing the system architecture, and setting
appropriate technical standards to facilitate the efficient and
effective use of information resources. 

  -- In one organization, prior to establishing a CIO, the cost of
     maintaining and enhancing existing systems consumed nearly all
     of the organization's information technology budget.  There was
     no one to focus senior management attention on critical
     information management and technology decisions.  Once an
     experienced CIO was put in place, technology investment
     decisions became highly visible and executives were held
     accountable for the business case underlying these decisions. 
     The CIO focused on improving the speed, productivity, and
     quality of information management product and services. 

A key CIO responsibility is to promote a productive relationship
between users of the technology and the information management staff
who support them.  We found that managers in leading organizations
recognize that they are the customers of information services.  They
assert control over the funding for information system projects. 
They assume responsibility for identifying specific mission goals,
redesigning work processes to meet the goals, and defining the
critical information and technology needed to support their work. 
The information management professionals, then, act as suppliers,
working to support efforts to meet management objectives, make
critical decisions, or solve business problems.  Often, a great deal
of facilitation and mediation is needed to reach a consensus on how
best to balance the needs of individual business units and offices
with the corporate needs of the organization.  The CIO, as a member
of top management, helps make this process work smoothly. 


   STEPS TO TAKE TO MANAGE
   TECHNOLOGY CHANGES IN THE
   SENATE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5

The management practices described above provide a tested framework
for building the information management and technology environment
that the Senate needs to achieve meaningful improvements in its
operations and outcomes.  By taking advantage of the lessons learned
by leading organizations, the Senate can increase the probability of
success in making a great leap forward in its own efforts, and reduce
the chances of having information technology projects that fail or
critical information needs that remain unmet. 

On the other hand, organizing its information technology efforts
under a sound management framework can help the Senate avoid pitfalls
that have plagued federal agencies for so many years.  Despite
spending many billions of dollars on information systems, agency
after agency still lacks critical information needed to analyze
issues, manage resources, control expenditures, and demonstrate a
good return on their technology investments.  Moreover, federal
agencies are falling farther behind the private sector in using
information technology to streamline their operations and improve
service to the public.  Numerous major ongoing systems development
projects have been highlighted by us, OMB, and the General Services
Administration as being at high risk of not meeting requirements
and/or running well over estimated costs.\2 Eleven of the 18 major
agencies that represent 90 percent of federal IT obligations have a
system designated as high risk. 

Following the strategic information management practices of
successful organizations will help the Senate focus on how to
organize itself to address the use of technology.  They will help
define the right needs to be met, create the organizational
capability to deliver appropriate systems, and control technology
investments so that they stay focused on achieving strategic mission
goals. 

As a start, the Senate can analyze the strengths and weaknesses of
its information management against the practices of leading
organizations.  Weak information management practices need to be
identified and an action plan developed to strengthen them or to
establish practices that are not yet in place.  There are many basic
questions that the Senate needs to ask itself, such as the following: 

  -- Are members and senior staff taking an active leadership role in
     defining the Senate's strategic information management issues
     and needs? 

  -- Has the Senate assessed its current spending on information
     technology, comparing costs to the quantitative and qualitative
     benefits it receives? 

  -- Is there a central organizational focal point, equivalent to a
     Chief Information Officer, for planning and managing information
     technology for the Senate?  And is it delivering quality,
     speedy, and efficient service? 

  -- Is there an effective, ongoing process in place--involving
     members and staff--to select, control, and evaluate the Senate's
     portfolio of existing and planned information technology
     projects? 

  -- Are performance measures in place for tracking the impact of
     information technology in improving legislative and office
     operations, reducing administrative costs, and improving
     responsiveness to constituents? 

To help organizations work through questions such as these, we have
develop a self-assessment toolkit that provides a structured approach
that enables organizations to compare their current strategic
information management practices with those of successful, leading
organizations.\3 This toolkit has recently been used by several
federal agencies, such as the IRS, the Coast Guard, and the
Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, to ascertain where they need
to improve their information management practices.  We stand ready to
assist the Senate in performing such a self-assessment. 

While assessing the strengths and weaknesses of its information
management, the Senate should also consider how to focus its
attention on developing a vision and detailed agenda for the next
decade.  The agenda should include the development of a strategic
information management planning process for the Senate, embodying the
successful practices of leading organizations.  This agenda should
also include awareness education for the members and staff on the
uses of technology.  The innovations being used in state legislatures
and some foreign legislatures can provide real-world examples of
powerful uses for technology in the Senate.  This awareness education
might also include setting up a model Senate office to demonstrate
and experiment with some of ways in which work processes can be
improved through information technology. 

Implementing the resulting agenda is bound to be a difficult task
since it will require people to change the familiar ways in which
they have done their work.  Managing resistance to change is a
necessary part of using technology to best advantage.  This is why
creating an awareness of the potential for technology in the
legislature and a common language with which to discuss it is so
important.  Leading organizations spend at lot of "up front" time
working with their executives, mid-level managers, and staff to show
them the advantages of using technology to revamp work processes and
responsibilities.  They have learned that getting substantive changes
implemented is a formidable task.  But it is a task that must be
addressed in order to share in the tremendous benefits of the
information age. 


--------------------
\2 See Information Technology Investment:  A Governmentwide Overview
(GAO/AIMD-95-208, July 1995); High-Risk Series:  An Overview
(GAO/HR-95-1, February 1995); and Government Reform:  Using
Reengineering and Technology to Improve Government Performance
(GAO/T-OCG-95-2, Feb.  2, 1995).  For summaries of chronic problems
over the past decade, see Information Resources:  Summary of Federal
Agencies' Information Resources Management Problems
(GAO/IMTEC-92-13F, Feb.  13, 1992); and Information Management and
Technology Issues (GAO/OCG-93-5TR, December 1992). 

\3 Strategic Information Management (SIM) Self-Assessment Toolkit
(GAO/AIMD Exposure draft, version 1.0; Oct.  28, 1994). 


-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5.1

Mr.  Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement.  I would be
pleased to address any questions that you or the other members may
have. 


*** End of document. ***