CTOVision

CIA IT Leaders Are World Class IT Leaders

Federal IT leaders have it tough. In general, they face hard challenges, are constantly getting their budgets cut, they must comply with tough security guidelines, and must support a workforce who think everything should work like it does in rich corporate environments or in computer security lax homes. And they must support and serve some of the hardest missions on earth.

I appreciate most all the IT leaders I have met in the federal IT space. But a select few rise above all others. Folks like Bobby Laurine, Prescott Winter, Bob Flores, and Al Tarasiuk.

One of those, Al Tarasiuk, was the subject of an article in CIO magazine today. See it at http://www.cio.com/article/print/441116

Here is a little bit of what that article says:

Tarasiuk has, so far, opened up the 61-year-old insular spy agency to the concept of more efficient and effective information sharing by using Web 2.0 technologies, such as the CIA's Wikipedia-like Intellipedia that's used across the U.S. intelligence community. Another sign of change is a grassroots, Web-based collaboration among Russian intelligence experts at several U.S. agencies, which enables analysts to securely share their insights, analysis and information on breaking news on Russia.

Tarasiuk has instituted a new IT governance team that has—for the first time—the highest level of management support at the agency. His team has also moved completely to agile project management methodologies, virtualized 1,000 servers that are projected to save $18 million in 2008, and empowered frontline CIA employees to ask for, decide on and employ new IT tools.

In 2007, Tarasiuk's team was finally able to the replace the CIA's main information-handling system, which was severely outdated and lacked the basic functionalities found in 1990s-era e-mail systems, with a more modern and user-friendly system called Trident.

In the process, Tarasiuk has tried to revitalize IT's image within CIA to match what's necessary today, "to be seen an as enabler of mission and not just a technology shop that's delivering a desktop," he says.

One thing I know from first-hand experience is that Al is a model of a CIO all enterprise technologists could/should learn from.

CIA IT Leaders Are World Class IT Leaders (continued)

CIO magazine continues its reporting on the IT enterprise at CIA and the CIA's CIO (Al Tarasiuk).  I have little more to add:  My comments from before still stand:  Al is a world class leader and this follow on report just underscores that.  I imagine Al is similar to other great CIOs from industry (folks like HP CIO Randy Mott, for example) and my old boss Mike Pflueger of DIA.   These leaders must wrestle with far more than technology (they can hand of the easy technology stuff to CTOs, right?).  In story after story of the great CIOs I note that they spend a great deal of time on culture, policy, process and human factors. 

For continuity I wanted to provide the link to the rest of the story.   It is here:  http://www.cio.com/article/print/441688

Bob