The Situation
The Office of the CIO (OCIO) at the Department of Justice (DOJ) needed more confidence in how it measured and tracked progress for more than 20 programs reported on the Federal IT Dashboard. These major IT investments spanned several DOJ divisions. Laws including FITARA, GPRA-MA, and FISMA made it essential to manage the portfolio more accurately.
DOJ aligns its IT and non-IT investments with mission priorities and monitors performance from the top down. That requires standardized data across the organization, so every project, program, and portfolio is planned, run, monitored, and reported the same way.
DOJ had never used earned value management (EVM), but knew it needed a strong solution. The OCIO turned to Edwards, a trusted partner already supporting the office.
Our Solution
After talking with key stakeholders and reviewing existing data, systems, and processes, Edwards created a plan to implement an earned value management system (EVMS).
Using our CMMI-appraised processes and PMI PMBOK®-based approaches, we built procedures that were flexible and scalable for DOJ, increasing productivity without burying teams in process. We partnered with DOJ to develop a complete performance management system that fully complies with the law and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directives. We captured DOJ’s approved financial process and standardized it across the Justice Management Division (JMD), including enterprise-level templates, to give DOJ better insight into program status.
Edwards helped DOJ implement the EVMS to manage 21 major IT investments totaling $1.1 billion. With deadlines looming, we first helped stand up a simplified EVMS to achieve OMB compliance. We later matured the system to meet all DOJ and other reporting requirements. We also enhanced the OCIO Portfolio Dashboard to include EVM data and moved the legacy DOJ investment dashboard to the eCPIC dashboard.
Edwards also wrote the DOJ IT Investment Baseline Management Guide to put the EVM system in place, and conducted compliance and surveillance reviews to make sure teams followed it.
The Benefits
By tying projects to budgets and mission through a dashboard, DOJ gained better insight into cost, scope, resources, acquisition, and risk. Benefits included:
- Compliance with ANSI/EIA-748 guidelines
- On-time submission of OMB Exhibit 300 and 53 filings
- Confidence preparing for GAO and OMB audits
- Real-time insight into program performance and pain points
- More confidence in project data and reporting
- Better management of federal and contractor resources, focused where needs were most urgent
- Savings from more efficient and accurate dashboards
By documenting the plans, training key stakeholders, and reviewing compliance, Edwards made sure the new processes and tools were understood and adopted.
Why It Worked
- ANSI 748A compliance standards guided the design and implementation of the DOJ OCIO EVMS.
- Training and mentoring on EVM processes were key to acceptance and smoother change.
- Reviewing and commenting on DOJ’s EVM best-practice handbook helped refine processes and spread consistent adoption.
