This state CIO has something to teach corporate America about managing priorities.
Patrick Moore, 36, CIO for the state of Georgia and executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA), is in charge of transforming the governance and effectiveness of IT for Georgia’s state government. As part of that effort, Moore spearheaded the consolidation and privatization of the state’s IT infrastructure and managed network services, making Georgia only the second state to do so.
A Georgia native, Moore became interim CIO in September 2006 and permanent CIO in February 2007. Prior to joining the GTA, his résumé included a stint as deputy chief operating officer and deputy chief of staff for Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue.
What are the biggest challenges facing public sector CIOs right now? Governance and the understanding that multiple stakeholders have a role in technology are the two biggest challenges that state CIOs have. If you can foster understanding across a broad stakeholder group on why you need enterprise governance, then conversations around why you need dollars tend to be more productive. I have multiple agencies that I have to provide services to. But I also have a boss — the governor — and then I have numerous stakeholders in the legislature. So governance and fostering an understanding of where technology should sit on the priority list across multiple stakeholders — those are the difficult challenges that state CIOs face.
What are their biggest opportunities? I think the challenge is the opportunity: the ability to consolidate and the ability to create improved governance across an enterprise. It provides a standardization of the technology, which can provide improved efficiencies and cost savings to the agencies and the citizens you serve. We’re in the middle of a large privatization effort. We’re anticipating $200 million in savings over the next 10 years, and that’s something the state couldn’t see without this program. Is that the primary reason we’re doing it? No, it was to reduce risk. But we will see these savings because we have a better way to buy and serve this technology, and that means we can keep our costs down.
What lessons could public sector CIOs teach CIOs in corporate America? Stakeholder management. We have not only our own organization; we have agencies and elected officials we have to manage. And that squares into the second point, which is managing complex change. How do you speak to and inform them and keep them with you as allies as you go through change in a complex enterprise?
Opinions about the state of the Georgia IT department when you became CIO were far from flattering. One study used the phrase “dysfunctional organization.” What were the main problems when you started in 2006? They were numerous. First of all, we were in lines of business we didn’t belong in. [For example] we were running a phone company. And when you dug deeper, it was clear we didn’t have proper processes in place to manage. We didn’t have the right skill sets. Our infrastructure was aging — 50% to 60% was six to 10 years old. We had a large number of employees who were close to retirement, and we had to fill critical skill gaps in the next two to three years. And our infrastructure was poorly run and poorly managed. We had servers in rooms that were at risk of overheating every day in the summer.
You decided to outsource most of the state’s IT infrastructure in 2008, making Georgia the second state to do so, after Virginia. How did you sell such a bold move? It started with gathering the facts. This was not a very transparent environment. It was filled with anecdotes and a lot of folks who didn’t have the needed processes in place. We brought in [business consultancy] TPI, and we asked them to scan our environment and help us determine how much we were managing, how it was being managed and what our options were.
The conclusion was that we were carrying too much risk, and in order to make timely changes, we had to go to the market, we had to outsource. And during the assessment process, we were constantly communicating with employees in other agencies, we were talking with agency heads, we were talking with the legislature, we were informing the governor’s office and providing ongoing updates about the assessment. As we began to develop solutions, we brought the agencies in to help us. Those employees helped us write the RFPs, so they reflected not what [our department] thought but what the agencies thought needed to be fixed.
In July youwrote in a blog that “the state of Georgia continues down its path towards a mature technology enterprise.” How will you know when the state has achieved that vision? When we can see where all the technology dollars in the state are going, when the government and the legislature are making technology decisions that reflect the need to invest, and when we have more customer-facing applications that allow our citizens to interface with government in an electronic manner.
Are you there yet? No. The next five years is how long it will take us to get there. We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in the past few years. We still have a long way to go; we still have a lot of training to do. We have a lot of education to do with our other stakeholders. It’s a journey, and I don’t know if it ever ends.
Patrick Moore
The most interesting thing people don’t know about you: I held the record for winning the county spelling bee for Pickens County, Ga. I won five years in a row, every year I was able to compete. I believe it was from fourth to eighth grade.
What do you do in your free time? I spend a lot of time with my family. I have a 4-year-old boy, Matthew, who’s into soccer and karate, and a 5-month-old boy, McCaidan. My wife’s name is Kristan. And I love to be outdoors and fly-fish.
Ultimate career ambition: What I’d love to do is turn around troubled organizations. I’d like to work at a private equity firm and manage a portfolio of companies that we’re trying to fix.
Pratt is a Computerworld contributing writer. Reach her at marykpratt@verizon.net.
