It was raining on the Iowa State Honest once we met with Gov. Kim Reynolds to debate her imaginative and prescient for the way forward for know-how in Iowa authorities. She had personally witnessed the inefficiencies, sprawl and duplication of know-how options throughout the manager department and had important considerations concerning the sustainability and knowledge of constant Iowa’s present decentralized strategy to IT. However amid these challenges, she additionally noticed a possibility: the prospect to reimagine how Iowa managed know-how for the long run — to search out efficiencies, but additionally to enhance the companies we offer to Iowans day by day.
The governor’s route in our assembly was clear: centralize and standardize Iowa’s data know-how portfolio and transfer with urgency. As director of Iowa’s Division of Administration, Kraig Paulsen understood the challenges of orchestrating large-scale transformations in authorities. As Iowa’s state CIO, I understood the know-how complexities and that the obstacles to centralization could be important. We each left the assembly with a transparent understanding of our mandate and the define of a plan that may take almost two years to attain the specified consequence.
THE LIMITS OF A FEDERATED IT MODEL
Like several massive group, state governments are complicated entities. They comprise many unbiased companies and departments, every supporting a singular mission. Generally these missions require collaboration, at which level two or extra companies may fit collectively to resolve a particular drawback. In any other case, state companies primarily attend to their very own portfolios of duty, working individually, however making up the entire of state authorities.
As computer systems turned essential to assist company missions, wave after wave of digital capabilities had been adopted by all governments to enhance effectivity, responsiveness and citizen expertise. In states with a “federated IT mannequin,” these capabilities had been typically acquired individually by every company, which means that IT employees, functions, knowledge facilities, servers and networks had been their duty to accumulate, deploy and handle. The outcome was a group of programs that had been incompatible, redundant and costly — all in several states of maturity with little oversight.
Such was the case in Iowa, the place unbiased know-how operations had been unfold throughout over 20 completely different companies. As Iowa CIO, I used to be typically requested to present a report on the circumstances of IT in our state from an enterprise perspective, together with every of those separate and distinct company IT operations. Below our federated IT mannequin, even the best questions had been troublesome to reply: How a lot had been we spending on IT? Have been our cybersecurity protections robust sufficient? Why couldn’t we share knowledge amongst a number of programs? What number of usernames and passwords had been required by an Iowa employer to work together with state authorities?
The solutions had been elusive due to the way in which IT had developed over a long time. Contemplate the results of working a federated IT mannequin like Iowa’s for 30 or 40 years. We hadn’t managed only one knowledge middle challenge — we had managed dozens. We hadn’t simply applied one case administration system, however over 30. Every time, we had been shopping for the identical know-how capabilities over and over, typically with out even figuring out it.
Understanding the dimensions of Iowa’s know-how footprint required a contemporary strategy. And so in 2023, we carried out our first complete statewide IT stock to offer visibility and make clear why these easy questions had been so troublesome to reply. Amongst our findings, we noticed:
- 31 case administration programs
- 25 knowledge facilities
- 10 enterprise knowledge warehouse options
- 7 electronic mail platforms
In complete, we discovered almost 1,700 IT merchandise from over 670 producers throughout the manager department. And we suspect these figures are understated. These had been the results of a federated IT mannequin in Iowa and the explanation Gov. Reynolds was, appropriately, involved about the way forward for know-how within the state authorities.
A GENERATIONAL IT REORGANIZATION
With these outcomes, and Gov. Reynolds’ mandate, my workforce started to develop a complete four-phased strategy to centralizing IT within the government department that we known as “strategic IT consolidation.” Every section was designed to deal with a particular dimension of our know-how operations: personnel, programs, budgets and procurement.
Our work started with a reorganization of the complete government department IT workforce, the primary section of our strategic IT consolidation. In October 2023, 45 days after the “honest assembly,” almost 500 full-time staff and over 250 contractors had been reassigned from 21 state companies into our new IT group: the Division of Administration Division of IT. Within the following months, we labored to construct a brand new working mannequin to assist this workforce, with an emphasis on organizational construction, governance and efficiency administration. In July 2024, our IT employees had been functionally aligned, transferring server directors, software builders, cybersecurity engineers and different disciplines into useful groups, supporting inner and company initiatives in a product-based supply mannequin.
We then developed a brand new statewide governance construction, composed of all state companies, to assist our second section of the strategic IT consolidation: the evaluation of IT programs. Evaluate panels had been fashioned to guage new IT acquisitions and legacy programs. Iowa’s first statewide enterprise structure apply was created. And in April 2025, we launched a statewide enterprise IT plan to ascertain pointers that may be utilized all through the governance course of: prioritizing commercial-off-the-shelf software program, cloud-based companies and the reuse of shared programs.
We additionally ready Iowa for a brand new IT monetary mannequin — the third section of strategic IT consolidation — supporting better predictability and visibility into company IT expenditures. Time reporting, useful resource planning and improved forecasting capabilities will likely be deployed in the summertime of 2025 in order that we will start evaluating the price of IT and tips on how to greatest deploy our collective sources for the long run. A brand new fee construction for IT companies has additionally been established, which is able to assist our centralized mannequin into the long run.
And eventually, underneath the fourth section of strategic IT consolidation, we established a brand new IT procurement apply, supported by modifications in Iowa legislation, to centralize the coordination of all IT acquisitions within the government department into our company. We developed customary IT contract phrases, templates for solicitations and new grasp contracts that prioritize using fixed-price, deliverables-based engagements. We applied a brand new IT contract administration system to trace our portfolio of contracts. And in the summertime of 2025, we’ll launch complete IT vendor scorecards to intently monitor our suppliers’ efficiency.
THE ROAD AHEAD
Our plans for the subsequent two years embrace the unification of seven IT ticketing programs, the discharge of a brand new IT challenge and portfolio administration system, the acceleration of a product-based supply mannequin for IT companies, the unification of legacy company IT working practices, and the assist of cloud-based modernizations for a few of Iowa’s largest enterprise programs.
Thus far, we’ve got already achieved monetary financial savings and operational efficiencies estimated to exceed tens of thousands and thousands yearly. As we use our new capabilities to drive enhancements, standardize and scale back duplication inside Iowa’s know-how portfolio, we stay up for Iowa’s centralized mannequin producing even better efficiencies. However extra importantly, we view our mannequin as a solution to assist new know-how traits that may higher serve Iowans sooner or later.
Briefly, the story isn’t full with out mentioning the big organizational change administration part. From the preliminary announcement of strategic IT consolidation in a governor’s cupboard assembly to at this time, roughly 800 challenge actions had been monitored and accomplished by the implementation workforce — an effort that required an enterprise-level dedication. Our subsequent section of labor consists of an extra 350 challenge actions to advance IT consolidation and unification efforts. Past the beforehand talked about accomplishments, main statewide initiatives embrace:
- Carried out a brand new cloud-based monetary ERP system
- Started the consolidation of 346 skilled licenses throughout 11 completely different on-premises programs into one cloud-based system
- Mobilized enterprise response workforce following the worldwide CrowdStrike outage, restoring all enterprise programs in lower than 12 hours
- Initiated the transition from customized to commercial-off-the-shelf/software-as-a-service functions
- Initiated the transition from time and supplies contracts to deliverables-based
- Initiated the transition from on-premise storage to processing within the cloud
The journey isn’t but full, however the progress we’ve got witnessed since our assembly with Gov. Reynolds on the Iowa State Honest has been exceptional. To leaders trying to replicate Iowa’s mannequin, my greatest recommendation is that there’s nearly nothing extra impactful — and tougher — than a complete IT reorganization. The alternatives unleashed couldn’t have been replicated in Iowa by some other means. And these successes couldn’t have been attainable with out robust management and assist from Gov. Reynolds, a dedicated and gifted management workforce, and a group of know-how consultants all through state authorities who assist our state companies day by day. Whereas we’ve got a lot work forward, our journey exhibits what organizations can obtain with willpower, planning and a robust deal with improved outcomes for the long run — all by transitioning from a federated to centralized IT mannequin.
Matt Behrens is the chief data officer of Iowa. He additionally talked to Authorities Know-how concerning the state’s IT centralization work on the NASCIO Midyear Conference in Philadelphia.
