The Government Matters Thought Leadership Network recently hosted a panel discussion on the Technology Business Management Framework. Sponsored by Software AG Government Solutions & KPMG, the program looked at cross-agency efforts to increase transparency in spend and performance metrics associated with IT.
“TBM is about reframing the conversation around IT and IT spend,” said Chris Borneman, chief technology officer at Software AG Government Solutions.
Before implementing TBM, “we would talk about how many transactions per month or how many transactions per year we did,” he said. Under TBM, “we changed that conversation to how many dollars of spend were managed in those transactions,” he said. “We went from talking about millions of transactions to billions of dollars that the system provided — and everyone lit up.”
“It was the same data, but we just changed that conversation,” he added.
Broad adoption of TBM is helping IT gain clearer and deeper visibility into when and how funds are allocated.
“There are over 300 organizations today that use TBM for the categorizations,” Borneman said. “Now, you can compare how much you spend on network hardware to another agency or even to commercial and see whether it is still appropriate or not.”
With a deeper understanding of the overall spend, IT is empowered to make more strategic choices.
“Now, I can free up money and I can go invest it and go do the things I want to do,” he said.
Others appearing on the program include Eka Flemming, senior adviser and TBM program manager, Housing and Urban Development Department; Willie Gaddis, chief financial officer, Office of Information and Technology, Department of Veterans Affairs; and Ty Enmark, principal, federal advisory, KPMG.