FDA plans for strategic IT portfolio

The Food and Drug Administration wants to develop a sound strategic IT portfolio management that will yield the most benefit to the agency.

The FDA is seeking recommendations for an integrated approach for IT operational governance, policies and business processes surrounding the IT strategic portfolio management, according to a new sources sought notice.

Agency officials want the approach to address implementing systems with suitable costs and within a reasonable timeframe. They also want it to contribute to tangible, observable mission performance, including greater transparency into the FDA’s IT spending.

The FDA currently has no formal, consistent IT strategic portfolio management framework or integrated operational governance process to make cross-agency IT decisions.

The agency said a successful portfolio would gather its assets under strategic purposes and the same resources.

According to a draft statement of work, the contract would include setting up the framework, developing multi-year roadmaps for planning and budgeting, and creating a central repository to store enterprise portfolio information. The FDA also wants to shift its focus from decisions on individual projects to an agency-wide perspective. With the shift, executives could better balance their decisions between risks of a single project and the risk to the agency overall.

The contract would be three years, and the scope of work would fall under the Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3’s Task Area 2, which is CIO Support.

The FDA released its sources sought notice May 28. Responses are due June 11.