**USDA OCIO Integrated IT Governance Process**

**Investment Planning and Review Guide**

**v. 2.0**

DRAFT as of 6/11/2007

## 

## 

##  

***Table of Contents***

PREFACE [3](#preface)

1.0 BACKGROUND [3](#background)

1.1 Introduction [3](#introduction)

1.2 Integrated IT Governance Process and Investment Planning and Review
[3](#integrated-it-governance-process-and-investment-planning-and-review)

1.3 Investments and Systems [3](#investments-and-systems)

Special Investments [3](#special-investments)

1.4 Updated Investment Planning Process
[3](#updated-investment-planning-process)

Framing Investments in your Portfolio
[3](#framing-investments-in-your-portfolio)

Capital Planning [3](#capital-planning)

Cost/Schedule Reporting and Earned Value Management (EVM)
[3](#costschedule-reporting-and-earned-value-management-evm)

IT Acquisition Approval Process [3](#it-acquisition-approval-process)

Other IGP for IT Components [3](#other-igp-for-it-components)

1.5 How to Use this Guide [3](#how-to-use-this-guide)

2.0 PORTFOLIO PREPARATION [3](#portfolio-preparation)

2.1 Introduction [3](#introduction-1)

2.2 Documenting the Budget Year Investments
[3](#documenting-the-budget-year-investments)

New Portfolio Requirements for FY2009 Investments
[3](#new-portfolio-requirements-for-fy2009-investments)

OMB Exhibits [3](#omb-exhibits)

2.3 Acquisition Approval and IT Investment Planning
[3](#acquisition-approval-and-it-investment-planning)

2.4 Cost/Schedule Reporting, Earned Value Management (EVM) and IT
Investment Planning
[3](#costschedule-reporting-earned-value-management-evm-and-it-investment-planning)

2.5 System Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) and IT Investment Planning
[3](#system-development-life-cycle-sdlc-and-it-investment-planning)

2.6 Enterprise Architecture (EA) and IT Investment Planning
[3](#enterprise-architecture-ea-and-it-investment-planning)

2.7 OCIO Contacts [3](#ocio-contacts)

3.0 PORTFOLIO REVIEW [3](#portfolio-review)

3.1 Introduction [3](#introduction-2)

3.2 Reviewer Responsibilities [3](#reviewer-responsibilities)

4.0 PORTFOLIO APPROVAL AND SUBMISSION TO OMB
[3](#portfolio-approval-and-submission-to-omb)

4.1 Introduction [3](#introduction-3)

4.2 E-Board [3](#e-board)

4.3 E-Board and OMB Scoring [3](#e-board-and-omb-scoring)

4.4 OMB "Passback" [3](#omb-passback)

4.5 Additional Required Documentation
[3](#additional-required-documentation)

4.6 IT Acquisition Approval and the Review Process
[3](#it-acquisition-approval-and-the-review-process)

REFERENCES [3](#references)

Appendix A: Agency Points of Contacts
[3](#appendix-a-agency-points-of-contacts)

#  {#section-3 .unnumbered}

# PREFACE

The purpose of the Investment Planning and Review Guide is to provide
guidance for implementing the Integrated IT Governance Process (IGP for
IT) for Information Technology (IT)[^1] in the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA). The IGP for IT[^2] is currently being promoted
and established by the USDA Office of the Chief Information Officer
(OCIO) to provide a dynamic means of capturing, retaining, and
presenting IT investment information so that the OCIO has the necessary
tools to carry out legislated mandates.

This Guide provides instructions for the investment planning and review
process, defining specific requirements for all investments during the
submission and reviews of investment documentation. It supports the
OCIO's IGP for IT by providing the guidance necessary to successfully
execute the investment planning and review phase of the process. By
following the instructions in this Guide, USDA will have better
investment planning, better reporting, and more visibility into where
and how their IT budget is being spent.

This investment planning and review guide is designed for use for all
major and non- major investments. The users of this guide include agency
Chief Information Officers (CIOs), project managers, and portfolio
managers.

January 2007 marks the beginning of planning the budget for the FY2009
investments. In 2007, OCIO is beginning the investment planning and
review process earlier in the year (beginning in January instead of
April) than it has been in the past to accommodate the new direction of
the IGP for IT.

This Guide is one document in a suite of documents (Figure 1) that will
provide the necessary structures, policies, processes, roles, and
responsibilities for implementing the IGP for IT.

![](media/image2.png){width="4.779861111111111in"
height="3.7527777777777778in"}

Figure 1

Agency IT investment portfolios must meet the following criteria:

-   USDA IT investments must be framed so that each investment has an
    exclusive relationship to one system or a set of related
    systems.[^3] Agencies cannot have a portfolio that contains multiple
    investments tied to one system, in other words, a system cannot span
    two or more investments.

-   Investments should consist of one or more systems that have the same
    primary Business Reference Model (BRM) classification.

-   Full life-cycle system costs must be considered.

-   Life-cycle cost information will be captured at the system level and
    automatically rolled up to the parent investment level to generate
    Office of Management and Budget (OMB) exhibits and other OCIO
    reports.

-   Information must be consistent with:

    -   the USDA Enterprise Architecture (EA) criteria

    -   Cyber Security criteria

    -   The IT Acquisition Approval (AA) Process and

    -   The Capital Planning Investment Control (CPIC) processes.

-   Investment documentation must be consistent with the expectations
    and standards set forth herein so that submitted investments can be
    reviewed against a clear set of criteria.

# 1.0 BACKGROUND

### 1.1 Introduction 

The Information Technology Management Reform Act (ITMRA) of 1996 (also
known as the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 and 40 U.S.C. 1401(3)),
established that Federal Government CIOs have primary responsibility for
supervision and coordination of the design, acquisition, maintenance,
use, and disposal of information technology by their agencies, and for
monitoring the performance of IT programs and activities.

The Clinger-Cohen Act requires executive agencies to develop a CPIC
process for making technology, budget, financial and program management
decisions. While each phase of a sound investment process has its own
requirements for successful implementation, there are some overall
organizational attributes that are critical to successful investment
evaluation:

-   Senior management attention

-   Overall mission focus

-   A comprehensive, enterprise-wide approach to IT investment.

The success of USDA IT investments is critical even beyond the
requirements of law, because the IT systems and infrastructure that USDA
uses directly influences its ability to deliver citizens' needs for
services and performance.

The OCIO is responsible for overseeing all IT investments and the IT
spending for USDA. The OCIO is currently engaged in an ongoing effort to
establish, maintain, and support an integrated IT investment analysis
and decision-making environment.[^4]

OCIO is establishing an IGP for IT to ensure "line-of-sight" from
investment planning through closeout, eliminate redundancies, and ensure
that budget dollars are being spent on projects that are beneficial to
the Agency. USDA IT investments must both support the USDA mission and
advance the USDA EA.

Investments must be carefully managed. The IGP for IT will provide OCIO
the ability to review projects throughout their development and
implementation. If a specific project begins to falter or is being
poorly managed, agency leadership will be able to intervene earlier and
more effectively in the project's life cycle than has been done in the
past. If mismanagement persists, the investment's budget for the
following year will be jeopardized.

### 1.2 Integrated IT Governance Process and Investment Planning and Review

The IGP for IT is a cyclical process for all IT investments and includes
three major elements: investment planning and review, investment
management, and portfolio evaluation. Agencies stand to benefit from the
establishment and enforcement of the IGP for IT. By adopting the
process, agencies will have more help available to them as they prepare
and submit investment documentation and will eventually prepare and
submit better business cases---business cases that avoid ending up on
the OMB "watch list." The IGP for IT provides discipline and rigor to
the investment planning process and allows for the tracking of every
investment throughout its full life cycle. Detailed information about
the overall IGP for IT is provided in the IGP for IT ConOps. The ConOps
can be found on the OCIO website at www.(conops link)ocio.usda.gov.
(when available, include link here and whenever site is mentioned
throughout document)

The first element in the IGP for IT is Investment Planning and Review
(Figure 2). Every year the USDA OCIO prepares an IT budget for future IT
spending based on data provided by agencies. A memo that listed the
required actions and documentation for the agency's investments as well
as schedules, was sent from OCIO to all the USDA agencies. This memo
signaled the start of the investment planning process in April.
Beginning in 2007, OCIO is initiating the investment planning process in
January with the publication of this guide and the ConOps. The earlier
start date provides more time for organizing, collecting and integrating
IT data across disciplines such as CPIC, EA, Cyber Security, and
Acquisition Approval (AA). The integrated process involves a deeper
degree of review and analysis, thus more time is needed for these
activities before the budget is finalized and submitted for approval to
OMB in September.

Investment planning and review involves three major steps:

-   Document preparation and submission by the agencies

-   An iterative cycle of Investment review to ensure the quality and
    appropriateness of the investment

-   Investment approval for submission to OMB.

The documentation preparation and submission step includes the tasks
agencies undertake in preparing documentation (in the form of OMB
Exhibit 300 and OMB Exhibit 53, prepared in WorkLenz) to support their
investments in information technology (hardware, software, services).
New investment documentation is prepared and existing investment
documentation is updated to comply with CPIC, Federal Enterprise
Architecture (FEA), Presidential Initiatives (PI), and Line of Business
(LoB), EA and Earned Value Management (EVM) requirements in preparation
for review by OCIO, OCFO and submission to Enterprise Change Control
Board (ECCB) and the Executive Board (E-Board).

Agencies may be asked, upon submission of their business cases to OCIO,
to continue to provide additional documentation for investments if OCIO
requires them to make a stronger case for the investment. This may occur
at any point in the review cycle. It is important to note that at any
point in the review cycle, if a reviewing body finds that documentation
is incomplete, agencies will need to provide the additional investment
documentation as requested.

![](media/image3.wmf){width="2.7416666666666667in" height="5.125in"}When
an agency submits its investment documentation to the OCIO, the
investment review cycle described in Figure 2 begins. The review within
OCIO and OCFO involves review of investment documentation for CPIC,
Security, EVM, AA, and EA requirements. The documentation that agencies
prepared is subsequently reviewed from multiple perspectives and in
several iterative review cycles. These reviews occur on an ongoing basis
typically from March through July. During this time period, qualitative
analyses of the documentation occur to determine alignment of the
investment with USDA's strategic plans, agency mission, and the USDA
target EA. During this time, OCIO meets with agency leadership and OBPA
to discuss the review results and present requirements for improvement
and completion of the documentation.

Once the cycle of reviews is complete, documentation on projects along
with OCIO's recommendations is submitted to the E-Board for
consideration before inclusion in the USDA portfolio. The E-Board review
is crucial in determining funding for an investment. The E-Board review
is the final step prior to submission of the USDA portfolio investment
to OMB. Upon completion of the IT review, the E-Board, either approves,
disapproves, or returns the investment to the agency for additional
work.

Every IT investment that will require funding in the designated budget
year must go through the planning and review step. That is, planning and
review is independent of where the investment is in its life cycle. New
investments, investments under development, and investments in the
steady state of maintenance and operations must all pass through this
process on an annual basis.

### 1.3 Investments and Systems

An *investment* is the funding mechanism for an IT project. It is
through the accumulation of approved IT investments that the USDA budget
for IT is identified in USDA's budget submission to OMB. The "IT budget"
is not typically a separate line item in USDA's budget submission; it is
essentially a categorization of how a portion of each agency's
programmatic or discretionary funds will be allocated.

Every USDA IT investment must meet two criteria: the investment must
support the accomplishment of the Departmental and agency missions *and*
it must support the advancement of USDA's enterprise-wide IT
infrastructure.

A *system* is a discrete set of information resources organized for the
collection, processing, maintenance, use, sharing, dissemination, or
disposition of information[^5]. It is comprised of data, assets (such as
personnel, equipment, funds), and processes, it is a collection of
components organized to accomplish a specific function or set of
functions. Ideally, an investment is made up of one system. Exceptions
to this general rule can be made for investments that address more than
one system; however, in such cases, the systems involved must be
structurally related as elements of the same effort.

The agency's IT Investment Portfolio is made of all the agency's major
*and* non-major investments. The factors that differentiate a major
investment from a non-major investment are listed in the text box to the
right. The USDA IT Investment Portfolio (also known as the Department's
Portfolio) contains all agency portfolios. An OMB Exhibit 53, which
contains the USDA IT Investment Portfolio information, is compiled at
the OCIO level and submitted to OMB.

#### Special Investments

Some investments are shared by multiple USDA agencies and/or departments
and agencies outside of USDA. These special investments, such as e-Gov
investments, have unique requirements that must be addressed within the
documentation.

For some of these special investments, collaboration by agencies to
prepare an interdepartmental business case might be required. For
example, The USDA Forest Service and the Department of Interior share an
investment. When an investment is shared one organization must accept
ownership. That organization is then responsible for preparing the
business case, but each contributing organization must reflect their
dollar amount towards the contribution within its own portfolio.

Special investments can lead to special circumstances, for instance,
when three agencies share one investment and collectively provide
funding for this investment, only one agency, the owner of the
investment, will be required to submit appropriate investment
documentation. In such cases, OCIO works with the agency to ensure that
investment documentation is handled properly. OCIO must pay close
attention to special investments and ensure that "double counting",
inclusion of funding amounts twice for the same investment, does not
occur. For questions regarding a particular special investment, contact
OCIO directly as each case will involve unique information.

### 1.4 Updated Investment Planning Process

The investment review planning process in FY 2007 is modified as
follows:

#### Framing Investments in your Portfolio

Beginning January 2007, agencies will begin meeting with OCIO
representatives to discuss how to analyze and frame their portfolio of
investments. Prior to meeting, OCIO will have reviewed an agency's
portfolio and will identify those investments that would benefit from
reframing and make recommendations on how to reframe them.

In this context, reframing an investment means restructuring its
composition to ensure and support the "Line-of-Sight" capability
underpinning the new IGP for IT principles. Two guidelines will be
followed in this process of investment review and reframing.

1.  Every USDA information system must now be clearly tied to a single
    investment.

-   Therefore, a valid system-to-investment relationship is defined as:

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **One investment may include one or more systems**.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Conversely, an invalid system-to-investment relationship is defined
    as:

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   **One system cannot span two or more investments.**

2.  In those cases where an investment includes more than one system,
    the "family of systems" should align with the same investment
    Line-of-Business (LoB) and map to the same Primary Business
    Reference Model (BRM) classification.

This focus on information systems as units of investment management
means that additional information will now be collected at the systems
level and additional analyses will be undertaken.

#### Capital Planning

New data elements are required for every investment. The Investment
Planning and Review guide covers both major and non-major investments.
New investments will be evaluated against existing investments to phase
out unnecessary redundant efforts.

More time will be allowed for planning and review, with the process
beginning in January instead of in April or May.

All IT systems that will require resources in the designated budget
year---including those systems in steady state maintenance and
operations---must participate in the IGP for IT, beginning with planning
and review.

#### Cost/Schedule Reporting and Earned Value Management (EVM)

Beginning in January 2007, there will be new cost and schedule tracking
requirements for all investments. All investments---including
non-majors---will now report regular cost and schedule performance data
through WorkLenz. Currently, selected major investments report monthly
EVM data through WorkLenz. The OCIO is preparing guidance to help
project managers of non-major investments utilize WorkLenz for project
performance monitoring. WorkLenz has the capability to capture cost and
schedule data at the system and investment level.

For investments that fall under the EVM threshold (as described in the
CPIC guide), cost and schedule data will be tracked to determine
performance and progress of the investment. Performance of an investment
is measured by determining the budgeted cost of work performance and
comparing it to the actual cost of work performed (i.e. actual cost).
Progress is measured by comparing the planned schedule to the actual
schedule of the project.

EVM is a project management methodology for integrating scope, schedule,
and resources, and for objectively measuring project performance and
progress. All newly designated major investments that meet USDA's
criteria for EVM are required to be EVM compliant. The EVM requirements
include:

-   Reporting EVM Cost and Schedule Variances monthly

-   Providing evidence of EVM clauses in applicable contracts, and

-   Compliance with EVMS ANSI-748-A Standards.

-   All applicable major IT investments must provide data using WorkLenz
    that will produce EVM reports by the 5^th^ working day of each
    month. WorkLenz has been upgraded and EVM reporting enhanced to
    include:

    -   Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) functionality and

    -   Linking of Project Cost and Schedule data to WBS

-   Corrective actions for cost or schedule variances that are either 7%
    over budget or behind schedule, for three consecutive months..

#### IT Acquisition Approval Process

The IT Acquisition Approval (AA) process was established by OCIO as a
tracking mechanism for IT acquisitions to improve accountability and
provide a reference for individual procurements. The process provides
insight into Department wide IT spending, helps define baseline and
helps identify trends. This process allows agencies and USDA staff
offices to identify and address cross organizational redundancies to
improve program efficiencies and allows agencies to leverage existing
resources to reduce costs and strengthen their knowledge base.

The AA process is being revamped as part of the IGP for IT. New
templates are currently under development and will be used to capture
and record the required information.

All investments will now complete an Acquisition Plan template in
WorkLenz. A new template is being developed to help project managers
pre-populate the plan during the annual investment planning and review
cycle and connect in one place the investment planning and acquisition
management information upon which acquisition approvals are requested
and considered. This approach eliminates the need for agencies to
resubmit investment justifications for investments that were approved
for inclusion in their IT investment portfolio at the conclusion of the
investment planning and review stage unless the investment is materially
changed by the agency between the investment approval and acquisition
request stages.

Analysis will be completed on integrating the AA process within
Integrated Acquisition System (IAS) to streamline the process and
maximize data reuse.

#### Other IGP for IT Components

Other IGP for IT Components that will undergo changes as the integrated
IT governance process is rolled out include:

-   [Enterprise Architecture Repository (EAR)]{.underline} - More
    detailed information---for instance, on technology standards and
    products and data architecture---will be entered into the EAR. This
    information will allow a better review of proposed investments
    against USDA's existing infrastructure assets and target
    architecture. This process will, of course, require close
    coordination with agencies, through the agency architects.

-   [System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)]{.underline} - A USDA SDLC is
    under development.

-   [Life Cycle Cost Categories]{.underline} - Updated Life-cycle Cost
    Categories/ Budget Object Classification (BOC) mapping will be
    provided later for the FY 2009 cycle to ensure more complete life
    cycle cost projections and ensure consistency with the CFO's
    requirements for this data.

-   [Business Transformation]{.underline} - A USDA Business
    Transformation Blueprint and a Configuration Management plan will be
    developed at a future date.

-   [ECCB]{.underline} - The ECCB plays a significant role in the review
    of USDA IT investments and in the review of the overall USDA IT
    portfolio.

How these new changes affect the planning and review of investments are
detailed in the following chapters.

### 1.5 How to Use this Guide

This document provides the guidance for the first portion of the IGP for
IT's annual cycle, the planning and review (Figure 2) and gives guidance
to agencies on how they must frame their IT investments around systems.
Guides for the subsequent phases--- investment management and portfolio
evaluation---are currently under development. The guidance provided in
this document supplements the ConOps and should be used in conjunction
with the SDLC Guide, the EA guide, CPIC guide, and the rest of the
investment guidance documents (Figure 1).

In addition, the guidance details the investment information required to
track each investment though the other IGP for IT phases. This IGP for
IT aims to provide "line-of-sight" for investments from planning through
closeout. The chapters in this Guide provide instructions for agencies
to successfully get through the investment planning and review process.

# 2.0 PORTFOLIO PREPARATION

### 2.1 Introduction

Beginning in FY 2007, with planning for budget year 2009, USDA is
requiring a greater amount of investment information for *all*
investments, both majors and non-majors. Non-majors will now be required
to provide additional information and in a greater level of detail than
was previously required. In FY 2006, the required information on
non-major investments was collected in the form of Budget Supplementary
Data (BSD) sheets on Excel spreadsheets. Eventually, this information
will be populated directly in WorkLenz but in the interim, it is
provided in the form of spreadsheets.

In the past, capital planning for IT focused only on major investments.
Guidance in the CPIC guide for major investments articulated OMB's
requirements. OMB pays close attention to major investments, and
requires that extensive business case support for them be provided by
investment owners.

Details on how to prepare the documents for major investments can be
found in the CPIC guide[^6]. Traditionally, however, less scrutiny was
placed on non-major investments and thus less information was required
for these non-major investments. Investment owners are already aware
that all major IT investments must be entered into WorkLenz. Text Box 1
on page 9 lists the OMB criteria for major IT investments.

The purpose of this WorkLenz requirement is to ensure that a single,
automated repository exists in which data on all USDA IT investments
appearing in the Department's IT Investment Portfolio (OMB Exhibit 53)
can be found. This repository will allow "single entry---multiple use"
functionality of the Department's IT investment business data,
eliminating or substantially reducing the Department's need to issue
several, disparate data calls and their related reporting burden to
agencies.

The documentation that agencies produce includes OMB Exhibits 300, OMB
Exhibits 53, and supporting documentation. Supporting documentation can
include acquisition plans, risk management plans, and security plans.

### 2.2 Documenting the Budget Year Investments

Documenting the Budget Year investments in January 2007 occurs after
OCIO has conducted an assessment of agency investments to determine the
need to engage in modifications as described in Chapter 1. In planning
the FY2009 portfolio, each agency should:

-   Review their existing IT portfolio for its value and for the
    prioritization of its initiatives.

-   Have an assigned portfolio manager who collects all the IT related
    information and who updates an existing agency portfolio (or creates
    a new one if one does not exist).

-   Have one-and only one-portfolio.

-   Have access to WorkLenz where this information should be documented.

The portfolio manager should make recommendations about which
investments should be continued, enhanced, or discontinued. These
decisions should be made in light of the EA view of USDA's "to-be"
architecture, especially with an eye for eliminating redundant
investments.

As early as January 2007, agency IT portfolio managers will review all
their agency's major and non-major investments proposed for FY2008.
Prior to this time, agencies have prepared documentation for the review.
These investments should have been documented in WorkLenz and should
have been submitted to OMB for a proposed budget review in September,
2006.

In November 2006, OMB returned the USDA's proposed portfolio with
passback information that included revised budgets for major and
non-major investments as well as evaluation scores for the major
investments' business cases. All agencies should have documented new
budgets as well as other additional information as specified by OMB in
WorkLenz by December 29, 2006 for the President's Budget for FY2008. The
January agency portfolio should have been updated to reflect this
information and this FY2008 portfolio is the now the basis for the
FY2009 portfolio.

The FY2009 portfolio will include additional information on all
investments, as well as information on a new category, that is, the
*systems* that are documented in these investments.

For help in formulating the FY2009 portfolio, USDA is conducting monthly
Project and Portfolio Managers Meetings. These are held on the last
Wednesday of each month. The meetings are held from 1:00 to 2:30 Eastern
Standard Time in the Washington, DC in the South Building, room S-107.
There are conference call numbers available for off-site attendance. For
more information, please email <eva.desiderio@usda.gov>. For help with
WorkLenz, please call Métier at 202-965-9500 or email
<pmousda@metier.com>. For agency contacts on CPIC, please see appendix.

#### New Portfolio Requirements for FY2009 Investments

The FY2007 planning and review process has several new requirements for
the preparation of the 2009 investment portfolio.

##### Changes Affecting New Investments

New investments established for FY 2009 must be evaluated against all
existing USDA investments, including cross-agency and cross-department
investments. The goal of the evaluation is to identify whether functions
are the same as or similar to the newly proposed functions already exist
within the USDA portfolio. If similar or identical functions exist, then
the existing function is evaluated to determine whether its potential
can help USDA avoid redundancy and duplication. New investments must
make a compelling case that no existing investment can be re-used in
part, or in full, as part of the pre-select approval process.

##### Changes Affecting All FY2009 Investments

There will be changes to the WorkLenz Investment Identification (ID)
Numbers. WorkLenz currently has a unique four-digit identification
number for investments. WorkLenz will be modified to add two more
numeric characters to the investment ID code to create a six-digit
unique identification number for each of the investment\'s
systems/applications. For instance, an investment with last year's
WorkLenz code of 1234 will now have a code of 123400 and its first
system described in that investment will have a code of 123401.[^7]

This six-digit number will also be added to the EAR records to better
align EAR investment technical and business applications to WorkLenz
systems/applications. This unique code will also be tied to Assert
records (Cyber Security System) for alignment. The investment and system
information will be integrated using this code with the AA process
through the Integrated Acquisition System (IAS) and EAR. In addition to
collecting information on systems, USDA is integrating the IGP for IT
components of EA and Acquisition Approval through the documentation
entered in WorkLenz.

##### Expansion of Life-cycle Cost Categories

OCIO is currently working with the OCFO to align life-cycle cost
categories with budget activity codes. In order to accomplish this
alignment it will be necessary to expand the life cycle cost categories
from the current 19 D/M/E and SS categories. The expanded categories
will result in primary and secondary categories. OCIO is working with
Metier to enhance Worklenz to incorporate the secondary categories into
the life cycle cost tables.

The primary categories will be the same as they have been in the past
unless modified by OMB. Several of the primary categories with have
secondary categories. For example the D/M/E Support Service category
will have the following secondary categories:

-   D/M/E - Support Services Commercial Hosting and Network Services

-   D/M/E - Support Services Training Services

-   D/M/E - Support Services Security Services

-   D/M/E - Support Services General

-   D/M/E - Support Services C&A Services

There will also be other secondary categories that will stand alone that
are not associated with a primary category. The standalone secondary
categories capture agency costs associated with NITC, ITS, NFC, and UTN
services. These standalone secondary categories include:

-   SS - UTN Services

-   D/M/E - UTN Services

-   SS - NITC Hosting and Network Services

-   D/M/E - NITC Hosting and Network Services

-   SS - NFC Hosting and Network Services

-   D/M/E - NFC Hosting and Network Services

-   SS - ITS Hosting and Network Services

-   D/M/E - ITS Hosting and Network Services

The cost information associated will secondary categories will remain in
Worklenz for USDA's internal use only and will not be reported to OMB.
For those primary categories with secondary categories, the secondary
cost category data will roll up to the primary cost category data. For
standalone secondary categories the cost data will not roll up.

System cost category data will roll up to create the investment cost
category data for the OMB Exhibit 300 and 53 life cycle cost data.

Expanding the categories will provide a better alignment to the USDA
budget object classifications to improve data reuse between capital
planning, budgeting and finance. Recording this information at the
system level will provide better insight into the cost of system
ownership.

#### OMB Exhibits

The agency and USDA portfolios and their contents are reviewed on the
agency, USDA, and federal level (OMB) through the use of WorkLenz
reports and exhibits. There are two IT exhibits that are used for
review, the OMB Exhibit 300 and OMB Exhibit 53. They were designed by
OMB and their format, content requirements, validation checks, and
submission process are described in OMB's Circular A-11 which can be
found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/02toc.html.

##### Major Investments and the OMB Exhibit 300

OMB requires that all investments designated as major investments (CPIC
Guide) submit a business case, or Exhibit 300. This exhibit presents a
case as to why an investment should be funded. The Exhibit 300 includes
documentation requirements for a risk management plan, security plan,
privacy impact assessment, and acquisition plan.

OMB requirements for the Exhibits 300 are announced via email to CIO
Council members each year. Changes come in the form of updates to the
Circular A-11 that can be downloaded from OMB's website at
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb>. Generally, OMB requirements change from
year to year. These updates are entered into the revised CPIC
documentation when they are received by USDA (generally around April).
The guidance for preparing OMB Exhibits 300, and OMB requirement for
major investments, is provided in great detail in the annually updated
USDA CPIC guide[^8].

##### OMB Exhibit 53 

The OMB Exhibit 53 is prepared for the entire portfolio and consists of
information about all investments. Information from WorkLenz's Life
Cycle Costs worksheet for non-majors and the Exhibit 300s within
WorkLenz are captured in the Exhibit 53 (produced in WorkLenz). The
Exhibit 53 shows, line by line, all the investments, major and
non-major, included in the USDA portfolio. In USDA, there are two levels
of Exhibit 53s that reflect the two levels of portfolios, agency and
Department. This exhibit shows not only investment names but also their
descriptions, their UPIs, their financial and security percentages,
their relationship to EA and Homeland Security, their funding sources,
Certification and Accreditation (C&A) of their systems, and
qualification levels of their project managers. This exhibit is used to
show the total amount of IT spending per year and whether this total is
for development or for operations and maintenance.

##### WorkLenz and OMB Exhibits 

Information for USDA portfolio and agency investments are captured and
managed within WorkLenz. This system continues to be the primary tool
for investment documentation within USDA.

When portfolio and project managers document investment information in
WorkLenz, they are required to use a form called the Life Cycle Cost
(LCC) spreadsheet. Some information for the OMB exhibits is collected
through the use of the LCC data entry form in WorkLenz. When the user
first documents or updates the investment information, he/she uses this
form to answer questions about the investment. These answers are used to
complete information for both OMB Exhibits 300 and OMB Exhibit 53. Since
the information is coming from one source, the LCC, the information that
is used is the same for both exhibits and is therefore consistent. For
example, one of the questions asks the user for which Federal Agency is
this investment and when the user answers "USDA," then WorkLenz inserts
"005" for the first three digits of the investment's Unique Project
Identifier (UPI) code.

Once the LCC is completed, the investment, whether it is a major or
non-major, becomes a line item on the OMB Exhibit 53. When the user
indicates that the system is a major system, WorkLenz inserts "01" into
the UPI and at the same time begins an OMB Exhibit 300 for the
investment. The user then must also finish completing the OMB Exhibit
300 that was generated by WorkLenz through the LCC.

The following data elements are currently being generated and collected
in the LCC and are used to pre-populate both OMB exhibits:

-   Budget Year UPI

-   Previous Year UPI, if different from the Budget Year's UPI

-   Investment Title

-   Investment Description

-   Primary FEA Mapping -- Line of Business or Service Type

-   Primary FEA Mapping -- Sub-function or Service Component

-   Percentage Budget Formulation (BF)

-   Percentage Budget Execution (BE)

-   Percentage Financial

-   Percentage IT Security

-   Supports Homeland Security

-   Development/Modernization/Enhancement (DME)

-   Steady State (SS)

-   Investment C&A status

-   Project Management Qualification Status

-   Funding Source

-   Funding Source Subtotal

Please note: OMB has increased their validation checks. For instance,
the three percentages that make up the BF, BE, and Financial total
together cannot exceed 100%. There are other similar checks like these
that will be incorporated into WorkLenz Version 5.0.

This year the LCC will have extra items to be completed by the user. For
instance some of the data that was collected on for the BSDs will be
included in the LCC instead of on the Excel spreadsheets.

Concurrent with the establishment of new IT budget reporting
requirements, Métier[^9] is migrating USDA data to the new Version 5.0
of WorkLenz. To make this transition easier, AgLearn[^10] will be
offering Computer Based Training courses for all WorkLenz users[^11]. 

To register, new WorkLenz users should contact Hien-Hoa Nguyen,
202-720-5786. In addition, the new WorkLenz users guide has been posted
on the USDA OCIO website.

WorkLenz was recently modified to match the USDA's new requirement of
framing investments around systems. Figure 2 illustrates the new
WorkLenz Version 5.0 taxonomy in comparison to the previous version. The
WorkLenz taxonomy is the hierarchical data structure that allows for
different types of data to be comparable in the system. Previously, the
taxonomy did not have the appropriate USDA terms and did not have
"system" as a subset of investment. The "Portfolio" now refers to the
specific USDA portfolio and "Programs" are now agencies listed by their
name. "Projects" are now "investments and "systems" have been added to
support the reframing of investments by allowing them to be divided into
systems. As you will note, data can now be collected by using the task
breakout for investments as well as for systems.

![](media/image4.png){width="6.372916666666667in"
height="4.2659722222222225in"}

Please note that WorkLenz now includes terms such as USDA portfolio,
agencies, and systems instead of programs and projects.

##### Non-Major Investments and the Life-Cycle Cost Worksheet 

OMB requires agencies to provide them with dollar amounts for all IT
spending. To have "line-of-sight", OCIO now requires additional
information for non-major investments.

A new template is being developed to help project managers identify
which information fields within WorkLenz now will apply. This new
information maintained in WorkLenz will allow OCIO to phase-out and then
eliminate several data calls that occur regularly, beginning with the
Business Supplemental Data (BSD).

Non-major investments will require more information to be captured on
the life-cycle cost worksheets in WorkLenz including:

-   Additional narrative sections

-   Expanded Life Cycle categories

-   Template within WorkLenz for non-majors (beyond the existing Life
    Cycle Costs worksheet)

-   Cost and Schedule tracking and reporting

##### In 2006, for BY 2008, OCIO requested additional info that was not asked for in WorkLenz's life-cycle cost worksheet for non-majors. The supplemental information was provided in BSDs. The information that was requested on BSDs, not previously available in Worklenz will now be available in the tool for BY 2009. FY 2008 info submitted on BSDs will be backfilled into WorkLenz. The information that will be requested is as follows:

  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------
  **Existing Fields in WorkLenz for   **New Fields in WorkLenz for LCC
  LCC**                               (previously found on BSDs)**

  Investment Name                     Dept. Agency or Staff office

  Investment Description              Investment Phase

  Federal Agency Code                 What Type(s) of Data does this
                                      investment support?

  Bureau Code                         Describe the software used (e.g.,
                                      operating system, software tools
                                      including version)

  Part \# of Exhibit 53               What is the expected investment
                                      outcome?

  Mission Area                        Agency or contractor operated?

  Type of Investment                  Contact information for
                                      program/project manager or point of
                                      contact

  Investment Identifier               Does this investment support a
                                      PART-assessed program?

  Is this one of the President's      Is this investment identified in
  Management Council's E-Gov          the EAR?
  initiatives?                        

  Line of Business or Service Type    Total investment cost

  Sub-Function or Service Component   Type of acquisition contract (e.g.
                                      BPA)

  Budget Year Unique Project          Which component of the PMA does
  Identifier (UPI)(Automatically      this investment support?
  generated by WorkLenz)              

  Prior year UPI                      Does this investment utilize USDA's
                                      ESS?

  Homeland Security Project           Are the support contractors
  Identifier                          compliant with USDA information
                                      security requirements?

  Budget Formulation Percentage       Is the investment compliant with
                                      USDA information security
                                      requirements?

  Percentage Financial                Is the investment compliant with
                                      National Archives & Records
                                      Administration (NARA) requirements?

  Percentage IT Security              List each system that is associated
                                      with this investment [^12]

  Investment C&A Status               Is EVM being used on this
                                      investment?

  Project Management Qualification    
  Status                              

  Life Cycle Costs Data Source        

  Project Data Funding Sources        

  Project Data OMB MAX Account        

  Life-cycle Costs Table              

  Project Plan Data                   

                                      

                                      
  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------

##### WorkLenz and Enterprise Architecture Repository (EAR) Functionality

WorkLenz provides day-to-day tools for assisting USDA senior managers
make better investment decisions based on the current and target
architectures, and the planned investments to support them.

While WorkLenz is the repository of the USDA IT Investment Portfolio,
the EAR is used to identify redundancies and also opportunities for
project or component collaboration and reuse.

The EAR is connected to the investments that are documented in WorkLenz
through the WorkLenz assigned investment number. This number is
generated by WorkLenz and it is assigned to each major and non-major
investment in both WorkLenz and the EAR.

Reframing of Investments will require that the changes made to Worklenz
will also need to be made to EAR to ensure the two repositories are
aligned.

In order to support the higher level of analysis and planning required
for investment planning, the information in the USDA EAR must be
expanded beyond the current FEA classifications associated with the
Business Reference Model, the Service Reference Model, the Performance
Reference model, and the Technical Reference Models. These
classification models are a sophisticated indexing methodology that
requires a level of specific information on technology products and
standards, data, and business processes that are associated with IT
investment applications. Additionally, the investments and applications
need to be identified as current and/or target architectures to reflect
ongoing efforts to improve and transform the business environment and
show the transition sequencing path between the two as the architecture
evolves in a planned and controlled manner.

Expanding the EAR will be an ongoing effort and will not be completed
before the investment planning process is started. However, at any point
in time in the investment planning process the best information
available in EAR and other repositories and automated tools used by
agencies must be used to help guide the development of business cases.

### 2.3 Acquisition Approval and IT Investment Planning

The information technology (IT) Acquisition Approval (AA) process is the
principal investment management practice in the Department's overall
integrated IT governance function. It is the central mechanism by which
the Department monitors and reports agency-level IT spending.

Specifically, the purpose of the AA process is to implement a structured
method that relates all USDA IT assets---both existing inventory and
proposed new purchases\--through an accurate and actionable
"line-of-sight" extending from the investment plan through the IT
acquisition review to the requisition record. The AA process supplies
the Department's integrated IT governance bodies with the financial and
business inputs needed to support informed, pro-active, and strategic IT
investment management decisions. The process enables these IT governance
bodies to steer overall IT acquisition strategies toward the increased
efficiencies and economies inherent in promoting: volume purchases,
shared infrastructure assets, and reducing system redundancies and
duplication.

The new "multiple use" functionality of the IT investment business data
mentioned in the introduction of this chapter is vital to the AA
process, because the OCIO is significantly enhancing the entire AA
practice. A fully automated acquisition approval request mechanism that
"links" pre-existing IT business case and acquisition strategy
information with real-time purchasing and accounting data will be
implemented by 2009. As an integral part of this effort, the OCIO has
already undertaken initial discussions with the OCFO and OPPM to ensure
collaboration, coordination and co-utility of outcomes with its
principle interested and affected partners. Ultimately, the desired
result is an accurate and actionable "line-of-sight" from the investment
plan through the acquisition review to the requisition record of all the
Department's IT assets. All the while, supplying the Department's
integrated IT governance structure with the investment inputs needed to
support informed, pro-active, and strategic IT investment management
decisions.

The AA process is undergoing a comprehensive, systemic re-engineering,
including eventual integration with other departmental automated
systems. The entire effort is estimated to take 18 to 20 months for
completion. With changes to the process occurring, the AA tasks will
vary from year to year and person to person depending on which fiscal
year's data is being worked on and in which fiscal year this is
occurring. The OCIO will communicate all process changes well in advance
of their implementation, and will apprise integrated IT governance
leaders of overall process transition progress through its normal
channels.

AA templates for use in collecting acquisition information that is
unavailable for re-use from existing data sources are currently under
development by OCIO. This will affect investment owners/project managers
differently depending on which fiscal year the AA is being planned.

General acquisition approval content guidelines are outlined below.
Although the final format has not yet been designed, for investment
planning purposes, investment owners/project managers should begin
immediately thinking about, researching and assembling information that
would be included in an initial acquisition plan. It is this data in the
acquisition plan that will serve as the business and technical basis on
which the follow-on acquisition approval request will be reviewed. At a
minimum, an acquisition plan must address the following information
items:

-   Background\--to include acquisition purpose, investment purpose and
    objectives, activity to date and any prior related acquisitions;

-   Justification---to include business alignment with departmental,
    agency and IT strategic goals, and business activities;

-   Acquisition Description---to include a short narrative, along with
    specifications (known at time of preparation) for hardware, software
    and services, plus contracting method/vehicle;

-   Budget Information---to include high-level, full life-cycle budget
    estimates;

-   E-Government---to include alignment with USDA shared services, and
    relationships with Presidential Management Agenda (PMA) Initiatives;

-   EA---see EA section of this guide for parameters;

-   Information Security---to include all relevant cyber security
    requirements (application, data, backup and recovery, user access
    and authentication, intrusion detection and investigation, and
    information sensitivity), plus related cost considerations---regular
    operating, C&A and remediation;

-   Telecommunications---to include services, network components,
    justification for independent network access (if needed), projected
    impacts on workload and rate of growth; and

-   Project Management---to include implementation, configuration
    management, and contact information.

General AA process task guidelines are described below. They represent
the AA tasks to be completed by investment owners/project managers and
[performed in FY 2007**.**]{.underline} They are grouped by the fiscal
year origin of the budget data. While the process task guidelines
described below emphasize the use and/or re-use of existing investment
data, each source named below does not represent 100 percent of the AA
information required to evaluate an approval request. Therefore, a
degree of additional investment data entry will be required. The extent
of which, however, will depend on OCIO's ability to leverage source
systems.

-   *[For FY 2009.]{.underline}* Investment owners/project managers
    should stay alert for OCIO guidance related to the AA process in
    general, and related guidance for WorkLenz. New for FY 2009 will be
    an IT Acquisition Plan template in WorkLenz. All investments---those
    new in FY 2009 and those that already exist in WorkLenz (including
    non-majors) must complete this acquisition plan. All succeeding IT
    acquisition approval requests, no matter the fiscal year, will be
    reviewed against this data. It is, therefore, in the best interests
    of investment owners/project managers to update regularly the
    acquisition plan in WorkLenz. Ultimately, this will reduce the
    burden on requestors at the time of acquisition approval, because
    the investment information related to the individual acquisition
    will already exist in WorkLenz. This results in a reduction in the
    amount information needed at acquisition approval time to the
    purchase detail alone. If WokLenz cannot be modified in time for the
    FY 2009 budget formulation cycle, then investment owners/project
    managers must complete AA data templates, currently in development
    for use with FY 2008 and 2007 investments.

-   *[For FY 2008.]{.underline}* Investment owners/project managers
    should stay alert for OCIO guidance related to the AA process in
    general, and in particular, pay attention to the related guidance
    for FY 2008 amendments. FY 2008 acquisition approval request
    information must be entered into WorkLenz templates. Currently, much
    of the FY 2008 AA information for major investments already exists
    in WorkLenz. Much FY 2008 AA information for non-major investments
    exists in the form of MS Excel spreadsheets prepared in FY 2006 and
    called Business Supplemental Data (BSD). OCIO and investment
    owners/project managers will coordinate procedures on how to
    transfer this information from Excel to WorkLenz. For those
    necessary data elements that could not be captured through re-use of
    WorkLenz and/or BSD sources, investment owners/project managers must
    complete AA data templates currently in development for use with FY
    2008 and 2007 investments.

-   *[For FY 2007]{.underline}.* Investment owners/project managers
    should stay alert for OCIO guidance related to the AA process in
    general, and related guidance for FY 2007 amendments particular.
    Until advised otherwise, investment owners/project managers should
    prepare and submit AAs using existing OCIO guidance (see reference
    section or OCIO website). Under the new "line-of-sight" principles,
    FY 2007 AAs are at a data disadvantage. Initially prepared in FY
    2005, they do not benefit from the rigor added in the FY 2006
    capital planning cycle (BSD first introduced). Most of the necessary
    data elements that could have been captured through re-use of
    WorkLenz and/or BSD sources are unavailable. Therefore, investment
    owners/project managers must complete---in their entirety\--AA data
    templates currently in development for use with FY 2008 and 2007
    investments.

### 2.4 Cost/Schedule Reporting, Earned Value Management (EVM) and IT Investment Planning

Beginning in FY 2007, OCIO will monitor regular investment progress on a
project performance management basis for ALL investments in the USDA IT
Investment Portfolio. Agencies and project managers will be responsible
for reporting regular project cost and schedule performance metrics on a
schedule based on investment type and asset size.

Monthly cost and schedule performance metrics through the EVM capability
currently in WorkLenz will continue to be required for major investments
that exceed \$20 million in development, modernization, or enhancement
(D/M/E) expenditures during the investment life-cycle. These investments
must apply EVM in full compliance with American National Standards
Institute-Electronic Industries Alliance (ANSI/EIA) Standard 748-A In
addition, these investments are required to include EVM reporting
clauses in acquisition contracts. (see Federal Acquisition Regulation
(FAR)). EVM is tracked on a monthly basis using WorkLenz. Monthly EVM
reports on the agency portfolio are then presented at IT leadership
meetings. If cost and schedule variances are greater than 10%, the
investment is considered to be in jeopardy. When a project reaches
variance of 7%, for three consecutive months, OCIO requires that
explanations and planned corrective actions be provided by portfolio
managers.

For additional references about EVM please see the CPIC Guide, and
Departmental Directive (DR 3130-006, Information Technology Earned Value
Management). These references are available on the OCIO website at:
[www.ocio.usda.gov](http://www.ocio.usda.gov/). In addition, WorkLenz
added four new Computer Based Training courses to AgLearn. Each user
should take these courses before using WorkLenz 5.0.

All other investments that have D/M/E funding must apply cost and
schedule principles for tracking investment cost, schedule and
performance, but are not required to meet ANSI-EIA Standard 748-A
criteria.

USDA IT portfolio investments defined as "Non-Major" will begin in FY
2007 reporting regular cost/schedule performance metrics. Those
non-major investments in the Development/ Modernization/Enhancement
(D/M/E) phase will use an abbreviated application of the EVM capability
currently in WorkLenz. This abbreviated EVM function will not require
the same compliance with ANSI-748a standards as is the case with major
investments.

Non-major investments in the Steady State (SS) phase will report
cost/schedule performance as part of their existing requirement to
conduct Operational Analysis, which is described in detail in the *USDA
CPIC Guide, Appendix \_\_.* This Cost/Schedule Status Report (C/SSR)
component, along with the other Operational Analysis data, will be
captured in a new template in WorkLenz. OCIO is preparing guidance on
the procedures and timing for this process.

For USDA IT portfolio investments defined as "Mixed-Phase" in status,
the agency portfolio manager and OCIO portfolio liaison will agree on
the dollar values apportioned to respective project phase and the
appropriate cost/schedule reporting system that applies to each.

  ----------------- ----------------- ------------------- -------------------
  **Investment      **Cost/Schedule                       
  Type**            Status Reporting                      
                    (C/SSR)**                             

                    **Threshold**     **Reporting         **Reporting
                                      Method**            System**

  Major             \$20 Million or   EVM                 WorkLenz -- Project
                    more in total                         Management Section
                    life cycle costs;                     
                    or as otherwise                       
                    designated                            

  Non-Major / DME   \$1 to \$19       C/SSR               WorkLenz -- Project
                    Million in total                      Management Section
                    life cycle costs                      

  Non-Major / SS    \$5 to \$19       C/SSR               WorkLenz --
                    Million in total                      Operational
                    life cycle costs                      Analysis Template
  ----------------- ----------------- ------------------- -------------------

**Table x: Cost/Schedule Status Reporting (C/SSR) by USDA IT Investment
Type**

For major investments required to be ANSI-EIA Standard 748-A compliant
the following list of documents are to be maintained in WorkLenz for
review by OCIO;

-   OMB Exhibit 300 for majors and LCC forms for non-majors

-   Contract (i.e. Delivery Order) with modifications

-   Statement of Work (SOW)/Statement of Objectives (SOO)

-   Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with a WBS Dictionary

-   Project Schedule

-   Project Organization Chart

-   Project Budget (showing WBS ID and budget for each control account)

-   Project Plan

-   Responsibility Assignment Matrix (i.e. Control Account Manager (CAM)
    list with WBS assignment identifications)

-   Risk Matrix/List with mitigation plan

-   Work Authorization Document (WAD)

-   Performance Measurement Plan (PMP)

-   EVM System Description

In addition to the required documents, each new investment must have
clauses included within its acquisition contracts directing the use of
EVM and ensuring compliance with the guidelines in ANSI/EAID Standard
-748.

### 2.5 System Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) and IT Investment Planning

A successful IT solution requires an integrated SDLC process that
outlines the deliverable requirements for IT investment projects in a
well-defined, coordinated manner. The SDLC is a structured, integrated
approach to developing and fielding IT systems, and is a key aspect of
IT governance and portfolio management. It will help to ensure that the
IT applications and systems developed will align with the Department's
mission, and support its business needs while minimizing risks and
maximizing returns throughout the system life cycle. All systems
developed under the USDA SDLC must conform to the principles, practices,
and policies established by the EA and must contribute to the attainment
of the Department's strategic goals at every stage of the development
process. It is our goal to establish, maintain and support one USDA-wide
SDLC methodology.

Agencies and Staff Offices are reviewing the SDLC Guide to see how their
Agency/Staff Office SDLCs align to it. Once finalized, it will become
the baseline for the IT development life cycle within USDA. Agencies and
staff offices with existing SDLCs can continue to use them as long as it
meets the departmental framework in terms of phases, deliverables, etc.
Each agency with an SDLC will need to demonstrate how it conforms to the
Departmental SDLC. This can be demonstrated through a traceability
matrix that does a crosswalk between the department's SDLC requirements
and the agency's SDLC phases and deliverables. Those agencies and staff
offices without an SDLC will need to use the Departmental SDLC. If
addition details are required to address operational needs, the
Departmental SDLC can be used to develop an agency specific SDLC. The
Departmental SDLC will serve as the model that agencies can adopt or
demonstrate that they have a SDLC that meets the provisions of the USDA
SDLC.

The SDLC guides the realization of investments selected during the CPIC
process. In order to ensure that the system developed under the SDLC
corresponds in form, function, budget, and schedule to both the
investment visualized during CPIC as well as the EA, it is necessary to
tightly couple the CPIC to the SDLC. The figure below illustrates how
the CPIC process (top) aligns to the evolution of a system across the
SDLC (bottom).

![](media/image5.png){width="6.339583333333334in"
height="1.2666666666666666in"}

### 2.6 Enterprise Architecture (EA) and IT Investment Planning

EA is crucial to the investment planning process. The USDA EA Program is
driven by the need to make good business decisions in a timely fashion.
This includes support for IT investment analysis, managerial planning,
and support for IT project managers and developers.

USDA's EA is a business-based framework for defining, analyzing,
managing and transforming processes, data and technology required to
maximize technology investments and to better achieve mission outcomes.
The EA framework will establish an enterprise-wide roadmap to support
the Capital Planning and Investment Control process.

The USDA EA will be used by investment decision-makers to:

-   Prioritize investments to determine how USDA can maximize value,

-   Evaluate investments against each other -- as well as against USDA
    strategic goals and objectives -- to ensure that critical gaps in
    business process, data, and technology are being closed, and

-   Compare all of the business, data, and technology pieces of an
    investment to existing investments to identify duplications and
    opportunities for integration and consolidation.

The following sections provide an overview of the EA focus areas for
FY2009.

##### Technology Products and Standards

Basic information on technology products and standards in use at USDA
must be identified, recorded into EAR and linked to the appropriate
classifications within the TRM Model and to the investment applications.
The basic information would include:

-   Manufacturer hardware make and model information

-   Manufacturer software make and model information along with the
    number of software licenses

-   Technology standards

This information will support analysis of actual products and services
that are in use at USDA. The analysis in many cases will identify
opportunities for enterprise purchasing and product standardizing and
reuse. These analyses will be used to establish short and long term
strategies for retiring, containing, and selecting technologies to
support the EA.

***Data***

Basic Information on data being used by USDA systems must be identified,
recorded in EAR and linked to the appropriate investment applications.
The first phase to identifying the basic information is to establish a
USDA Data Reference Model (DRM) that identifies subject areas and
information classes to be used to used to categorize USDA data. A USDA
DRM Data Context Model has been developed that will be used to identify
the categories of data associated with investment business applications.
The DRM classification list was developed by leveraging efforts
completed across the Department and other federal agencies. Specific
sources include: the National Agricultural Library Taxonomy, the 1997
Information Systems Technology Architecture Business/Data Subject List,
and Department of Interior\'s data classification schema.

The following table identifies several subject areas and associated
information classes:

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Subject Area          Definition        Information   Information Class
                                          Class         Definition
  --------------------- ----------------- ------------- -------------------------
  **ACQUISITION AND     Information about Acquisition   procurement of personal
  PROCUREMENT**         the procurement   and           and real property and
                        of personal and   Procurement   services used by the
                        real property and               Federal Government.
                        services used by                
                        the Federal                     
                        Government.                     

  ***AUTHORIZATION***   The legal consent Permit and    Information about formal
                        acquired or       License       permissions and revocable
                        granted by state,               authorizations issued for
                        federal, and                    a specified purpose and
                        international                   for a specified time
                        organizations                   period.
                        granting                        
                        permission to                   
                        conduct business                
                        activities or                   
                        move commodities.               
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mapping of this information to USDA business applications supports
preliminary analysis to identify potential areas for further
optimization analysis. Deeper analysis on data elements will need to be
performed in order to make decisions on establishing USDA data element
standards and normalizing data across applications.

### 2.7 OCIO Contacts

For additional information, or assistance on each of the integrated
disciplines, please contact:

  ----------------- -------------- --------------- -----------------------------
  **Discipline**    **Manager**    **Phone         **E-mail Address**
                                   Number**        

  *Integrated IT    John Bebris    202-720-8640    <John.bebris@usda.gov>
  Governance*                                      

  *AA Process*      John Bebris    202-720-8640    <John.bebris@usda.gov>

                    Leslie Nanney  202-690-5992    <Leslie.nanney@usda.gov>

  *EA*              Christopher    202-720-6746    <Christopher.wren@usda.gov>
                    Wren                           

  *EVM*             Eva Desiderio  202-720-8918    <Eva.desiderio@usda.gov>

  *Capital          Eva Desiderio  202-720-8918    <Eva.desiderio@usda.gov>
  Planning*                                        

  *CyberSecurity*                  877-299-8329    
  ----------------- -------------- --------------- -----------------------------

#  

# 3.0 PORTFOLIO REVIEW

### 3.1 Introduction

The review cycle of the Investment Planning and Review process begins
upon submission of the investment documentation to OCIO. The submitted
documentation is reviewed from multiple perspectives and in several
review cycles. This process occurs on an ongoing basis from March trough
July (internal OCIO review may begin as early as January). The review
completed by OCIO at this phase is referred to as the "IT Review." In
addition to the IT review, the OBPA conducts the budget review for the
investment. Reviewing responsibilities of OCIO, OCFO), OBPA, and the
ECCB are described in detail in subsequent sections.

Any of the reviewing bodies could find the supporting documentation
incomplete or insufficient in some way and send the investment
information back to agencies at any point in the review process. The
agency must address any deficiencies to support favorable consideration
by the E-Board.

### 3.2 Reviewer Responsibilities 

##### OCIO (EA, CPIC, and Security), OCFO and the Review Process 

Within OCIO, the investment documentation undergoes reviews by the CPIC,
EA, and Security teams. These reviewer groups must collectively approve
the investment documentation for the review cycle to continue. If the
documentation is not approved, the submitting agency will be required to
provide additional supporting documentation. Upon this additional
submission, the investment re-enters the review cycle. Upon approval by
OCIO, the investment is reviewed by ECCB, undergoes budget review, and
eventually moves into the E-Board review phase.

OCIO is responsible for reviewing and comparing agency budgets to the IT
budget. OCIO serves as the liaison between agencies and OBPA in the
budget review process.

The CPIC process as implemented at USDA is a structured, integrated
approach to managing IT investments. Reviewing IT investments for
compliance with the CPIC guide ensures that all IT investments align
with the USDA mission strategic goals and business needs while
minimizing risks and maximizing returns throughout the investment's
life-cycle. The CPIC relies on a systematic *Pre-Select, Select,
Control, Evaluate and Steady-State* investment life-cycle process to
ensure each investment's objectives support the mission, business and
architecture needs of the Department. This process requires that IT
investments be aligned with the EA, and provides tools to ensure that IT
investments are chosen that best support the agency's mission and that
comply with USDA's IT architecture.

EA supports IT capital investment planning by defining target
architecture for future IT acquisitions (e.g., application systems and
infrastructure) as well as facilitating agency IT capital investment
decision-making.

OCIO's IT Security team reviews investment narratives pertaining to
security requirements to ensure that the full range of security
functions have been addressed in the investment documentation. The IT
security review is conducted to ensure investments consistently address
the security requirements: meeting privacy and information security
requirements according to FISMA; mitigating weaknesses by identifying
them in the Plan of Action Milestones (POAMs); and providing
documentation about how security for the investment will be funded.

The supporting documentation for the security review should include
privacy impact assessments and security plans covering testing,
training, incident handling and control testing. The IT security review
process is currently undergoing further development. The IT security
team will provide process updates for this guide as they become
available.

##### IT Budget Review Process

In addition to reviewing the IT investment documentation and preparing
recommendations for investment decisions, OCIO also participates in the
annual review of the IT portion of agency budget proposals. Around July,
when each agency submits a funding request to the Office of Budget and
Program Analysis, a copy of this request is also provided to the OCIO.
As with the IT investment documentation, this information is reviewed by
all the major functional areas of OCIO and OCFO. As part of this review,
OCIO is analyzing these proposals for consistency with IT investment
documentation. In particular, OCIO is interested to note if additional
program requests have been made that are not supported by the required
IT documentation (for major investments that would include all business
case documents as well as an OMB Exhibit 300). This is also another
opportunity to review for duplication of effort by multiple agencies.

After evaluating the Budget request justifications in concert with the
IT support documentation, OCIO provides recommendations for approval or
disapproval of an agency budget request.

Funding decisions are provided to the agencies in the form of a passback
from OBPA. IT investments may or may not be specifically addressed in
the passback but they could certainly be influenced by a funding
decision to the program that the IT supports.

OBPA and OCIO interact informally through ad hoc communication and
meetings throughout the budget process to align the IT review with the
CFO's budget.

##### Enterprise Change Control Board (ECCB) and the Review Process

OCIO established the Information Technology ECCB to assist USDA in
making investment decisions. The ECCB facilitates collaborative decision
making among Agencies to resolve common IT challenges and issues. In
addition, the ECCB advises the USDA Chief Information Officer (CIO) of
the value and opportunity to share or consolidate IT services,
applications, and infrastructure.

The ECCB provides an assessment of business value and recommend
preferred technical approaches for implementing the initiative to the
USDA CIO. It will provide a mechanism for formalizing and facilitating
partnerships between the USDA agencies and offices so that common
solutions may be developed.

The ECCB is comprised of the USDA agency and office CIOs and Staff
Office CIOs of and Associate CIOs of the OCIO. Doug Bailey, AMS CIO is
Chairperson, Wendy Snow and Chris Wren, OCIO Enterprise Architects are
the Vice Chairpersons. This position is held by USDA's Enterprise
Architect, Christopher Wren. Additional detail about the ECCB can be
found in the ECCB Charter. A copy of the Charter is in the Appendix.

# 4.0 PORTFOLIO APPROVAL AND SUBMISSION TO OMB

### 4.1 Introduction

Once submitted documentation is approved by OCIO, it undergoes one
additional level of review before it is submitted to OMB. This next
level of review is done by the E-Board. Ultimately, for funding to be
approved, the E-Board, headed by the Deputy Secretary, must approve the
portfolio for inclusion with USDA's budget submission. The Office of the
Secretary/Deputy Secretary makes all budget decisions for the Department
including the IT budget. The E-Board serves as the Deputy Secretary's
recommending body by providing IT investment information to inform the
budget decisions.

### 4.2 E-Board

The reviews by senior-level policy executive are integral to the success
of USDA's CPIC process. The E-Board ensures compliance with guidance
from Congress, OMB, and GAO, as well as applies sound business practices
to the planning, acquisition, and operation of large IT investments. The
following sections contain the E- Board Charter.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Clinger-Cohen Act, the Department of
Agriculture established the E-Board, made up of senior-level policy
executives, to ensure that USDA IT investments are managed as strategic
business resources. The deputy secretary oversees this process as part
of his responsibility for day-to-day operations of the Department. The
E-Board is comprised of the Department's senior level policy executives.
In addition to these positions, the Board, at its discretion, may name
ex-officio members to provide specialized expertise and advice. These
principal positions (and the individuals currently holding the
positions) are as follows:

  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------
  ***Position***                      ***Board Member***

  Deputy Secretary, Chair             Deputy Secretary Conner

  Chief Information Officer,          Dave Combs, Chief Information
  Vice-Chair                          Officer

  Assistant Secretary for             Boyd Rutherford, Assistant
  Administration                      Secretary

  Assistant Secretary for Civil       Margo M. McKay, Assistant Secretary
  Rights                              

  Under Secretary, Farm and Foreign   Floyd Gaibler, Acting Under
  Agricultural Service                Secretary

  Under Secretary, Food, Nutrition    Kate Coler, Deputy Under Secretary
  and Consumer Services               

  Under Secretary, Food Safety        Curt Mann, Deputy Under Secretary

  Under Secretary, Marketing and      Bruce Knight, Deputy Under
  Regulatory Programs                 Secretary

  Under Secretary, Natural Resources  Mark Rey, Under Secretary
  and Environment                     

  Under Secretary, Research,          Gale Buchanan, Under Secretary
  Education and Economics             

  Under Secretary, Rural Development  Douglas Faulkner, Deputy Under
                                      Secretary

  General Counsel                     Mark Kesselman, General Counsel

  Inspector General                   Kathy Tighe, Deputy Inspector
                                      General

  Director, Office of Budget and      Scott Steele, Director
  Program Analysis                    

  E-Board Point of Contact            Chris Niedermayer Associate Chief
                                      Information Officer
  ----------------------------------- -----------------------------------

The E-Board Charter, which can be found in the CPIC Guide, describes the
E-Board in additional detail.

### 4.3 E-Board and OMB Scoring

USDA's E-Board meets quarterly to discuss issues concerning USDA IT
strategy and direction. Before the USDA IT portfolio is submitted to
OMB, the individual agency IT investment portfolios are presented to the
E-Board. These portfolios are evaluated for redundancy of effort as well
as cost, in addition to the ten criteria listed below. The USDA
portfolio as well as the investments within each portfolio is reviewed.
The E-board chooses the IT projects that best support the mission of the
organization and that support USDA's approach to EA. The E-board
determines the IT direction for USDA provides guidance on choosing the
investments for the USDA portfolio and its mission to insure success.
The E-Board reviews the portfolios using USDA criteria which follow the
OMB requirements. For the FY2008 submission, OMB scored the investments
according to the following ten criteria:

-   Support for the President's Management Agenda (PMA)

-   Program Management (PM)

-   Acquisition Strategy (AS)

-   Performance Information (PI)

-   Security (SE)

-   Privacy (PR)

-   EA

-   Alternatives Analysis (AA)

-   Risk Management (RM)

-   Performance-Based Management (PB)

Each criterion is worth up to 5 points. A total of 50 points is possible
if the business case showed that it met all requirements, that all the
research and work was completed and that the report is consistent.
Investments that score below 31 are placed on the OMB "watch list." If
the score for the security criterion is 3 or below, the investment would
still be placed on the "watch list" regardless of a total score of 31 or
above. An additional category, "Outside Factors", was added in 2006
which means that if there were issues outside the scoring categories
that needed to be resolved, the investment would be placed on the "watch
list."

For all new and existing business cases, these criteria should be
addressed within the business cases and within the supporting documents.
All supporting material should be attached in WorkLenz and should be
available for review when requested by the E-Board or by OMB. For
additional information on how OMB scores investments, visit the OMB
website at http://www.ocio.usda.gov/cpic/index.html

### 4.4 OMB "Passback"

The OMB Passback is the document that OMB sends to USDA after its review
of the USDA's IT OMB Exhibits 300 and 53. These exhibits are sent to OMB
in September and then OMB reviews them in October and part of November.
Around Thanksgiving, OMB sends the passback document which contains OMB
decisions on what requests should be granted, reduced, or refused. In
addition, the passback contains scores for the OMB Exhibit 300s
submitted for USDA majors.

The scores indicate whether the major investments should be approved,
disapproved or placed on an OMB "watch list." At this point USDA can
appeal the passback. This is done by a letter that is sent to OMB giving
justifications on why the request should be changed or not denied. Also,
at this time USDA representatives meet with OMB to find out why certain
investments were placed on the "watch list" and how they can be removed.
OMB may suggest that USDA provide additional documents or studies or
present other alternatives. All these negotiation activities must be
completed by the end of December so that the final Presidential Budget
may be completed and posted.

### 4.5 Additional Required Documentation

Circumstances arise that require additional investment documentation be
provided by agencies to OCIO or by OCIO to OMB as a result of the
initial reviews. OMB maintains a "watch list" for investments. There are
several reasons that can cause an investment to be listed in the "watch
list" such as not meeting the documentation requirements, posing a risk
or management issue, etc. Agencies, with the assistance of OCIO are
responsible for remediating business cases so that they can be removed
from OMB's "watch list." OMB Circular A-11[^13] provides more detailed
information about the OMB "watch list."

In addition, OMB pays special attention to "high-risk" projects, which
are described in Circular A-11 as investments requiring special
attention from oversight authorities and the highest levels of agency
management for any of the following reasons:

-   The agency has not consistently demonstrated the ability to manage
    complex projects;

-   The investment has exceptionally high development, operating, or
    maintenance costs, either in absolute terms or as a percentage of
    the agency's total IT Portfolio;

-   The investment is being undertaken to correct recognized
    deficiencies in the adequate performance of an essential mission
    program or function of the agency, a component of the agency, or
    another organization; or

-   Delay or failure of investment would introduce for the first time
    unacceptable or inadequate performance or failure of an essential
    mission function of the agency, a component of the agency, or
    another organization.

Since September 2005, agency CIOs have been responsible for assessing,
confirming, and documenting the performance of high risk projects. OCIO
will work with owners of the high risk projects to compile and submit
the required documentation to OMB. The documentation required is a
quarterly report submitted by OCIO to OMB. The submitted report consists
of the following information:

  --------------------------------- -------------------------------------
  Agency Name:                      

  As of Date:                       

  Fiscal Year Quarter:              

  Prepared By:                      

  Telephone Number:                 

  Email Address:                    
  --------------------------------- -------------------------------------

+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+
| Inves | Are |      |      |       | For    |     |       |       |
| tment | the |      |      |       | each   |     |       |       |
| Name  | Pri |      |      |       | of the |     |       |       |
|       | nci |      |      |       | Cr     |     |       |       |
|       | pal |      |      |       | iteria |     |       |       |
|       | Cr  |      |      |       | not    |     |       |       |
|       | ite |      |      |       | being  |     |       |       |
|       | ria |      |      |       | met,   |     |       |       |
|       | Be  |      |      |       | Id     |     |       |       |
|       | ing |      |      |       | entify |     |       |       |
|       | M   |      |      |       | and    |     |       |       |
|       | et? |      |      |       | De     |     |       |       |
|       |     |      |      |       | scribe |     |       |       |
|       | (In |      |      |       | the    |     |       |       |
|       | dic |      |      |       | Foll   |     |       |       |
|       | ate |      |      |       | owing: |     |       |       |
|       | Y/N |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | for |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | e   |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | ach |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | c   |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | rit |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | eri |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
|       | on) |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+
|       | Ba  | Cost | Q    | Avo   | Sp     | Ca  | Nece  | A     |
|       | sel | and  | uali | iding | ecific | use | ssary | mount |
|       | ine | Sche | fied | D     | Perfo  | of  | Corre | and   |
|       | w   | dule | Pro  | uplic | rmance | the | ctive | S     |
|       | ith | Vari | ject | ation | Sho    | Sho | Act   | ource |
|       | Cl  | ance | Man  |       | rtfall | rtf | ions, | of    |
|       | ear | wi   | ager |       |        | all | with  | Fun   |
|       | Go  | thin |      |       |        |     | dates | ding, |
|       | als | 10%  |      |       |        |     |       | if    |
|       |     |      |      |       |        |     |       | req   |
|       |     |      |      |       |        |     |       | uired |
+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+
|       |     |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+
|       |     |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+
|       |     |      |      |       |        |     |       |       |
+-------+-----+------+------+-------+--------+-----+-------+-------+

### 4.6 IT Acquisition Approval and the Review Process

The AA process is the pivotal review and approval phase that connects
the IT investment planning phase (capital plans and business cases) with
the IT asset purchasing phase (requisitions and expenses). This process
occurs after approval from the E-Board and after the OMB submission is
completed. It is the element within IGP for IT that spurs the investment
management phase to begin. This step can be viewed as a verification or
validation of the acquisition strategy (or plan)\--originally prepared
as part of a larger capital plan or business case\--prior to the
acquisition's actual execution two years later at budget execution time.

It is important, as part of the investment planning phase (beginning
January 2007 for the FY 2009 budget formulation activity), that all
capital plans and business cases include as much detail as possible in
their acquisition strategies (plans), because it is these data that will
be used to substantiate their related acquisition approval requests
during the appropriate budget execution year. Likewise, it is important
to update the information in existing acquisition strategies for the
same reasons. For example, while preparing FY 2009 investment plans
(budget requests) in FY 2007, investment owners should update---where
appropriate\--related FY 2008 acquisition strategies. This will lessen
the burden of revising substantially or preparing a new AA at the time
of budget execution.

# REFERENCES

Applicable references

OMB guidance

CPIC guide

# Appendix A: Agency Points of Contacts

![](media/image6.wmf)![](media/image7.wmf)

[^1]: Information Technology (IT) is any equipment or interconnected
    system or subsystems used in the automatic acquisition, storage,
    manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching,
    interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information. The
    IT budget also includes IT personnel costs and costs that are
    related to IT purchases, research, contract work, etc.

[^2]: As noted in the ConOps, The activities that the investments
    undergo include planning, acquisition approval, purchasing, and
    implementation for a positive Return on Investment (ROI).

[^3]: Agencies will have to organize systems within the same BRM into
    the same investment.

[^4]: See the *Concept of Operations for the IGP for IT for Information
    Technology*

[^5]: NIST 800-53 Guide for Developing Security Plans for Federal
    Information Systems
    (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-53/SP800-53.pdf).

[^6]: The CPIC guide is updated annually according to changes in
    requirements from OMB. The USDA CPIC Guide that was updated for the
    FY2008 submission will be updated again for the FY2009 submission.
    The FY2008 CPIC guide should be used for preparing the OMB Exhibit
    300s. However, these exhibits may need to be updated later since OMB
    guidance changes annually during the June/July timeframe. The FY2009
    CPIC guide will also be updated to reflect any changes that OMB
    proposes (include URL)

[^7]: By extending the investment ID code to 6 digits, these multiple
    systems will be able to be tracked back to the specific investment
    through which they are approved.

[^8]: http://www.ocio.usda.gov/cpic/usda_cpic_material.html

[^9]: Métier is the software publisher of WorkLenz. Métier is a small
    business contractor that provides WorkLenz support to users at USDA.

[^10]: AgLearn is the USDA's Web based learning management system.

[^11]: Details on how to access these courses will be provided at the
    January 24 IT Project and Portfolio Managers meeting. 

[^12]: Within WorkLenz, additional fields are required to be completed
    for each system associated with the non-major investment. The fields
    are currently available on the Budget Year 2008 BSDs.

[^13]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/02toc.html