IT Quality A Concern At Homeland SecurityIT Quality A Concern At Homeland Security

By the end of August, the Homeland Security Department expects to launch the initial version of a portal that will tie together its various intranets, public-facing Web sites, and its extranet. The project is noteworthy not just because the department seeks to further one of its core missions of gathering and sharing government data, but also because of Homeland Security's move to enlist an independent watchdog group to help with the project's planning phase.

Homeland Security has, for the first time since its formation in early 2003, hired Interoperability Clearinghouse Inc., a not-for-profit consortium of government agencies and private contractors, to help the department during the information-gathering phase of a major IT project.

Over the next few weeks, Interoperability Clearinghouse will compile information about portal-building best practices solicited from service providers and software vendors. By the end of May, the group, whose membership includes Boeing, the Commerce Department, and the Navy, will present Homeland Security with a report summarizing and analyzing its findings.

Homeland Security chose to involve Interoperability Clearinghouse to help the department draft a more focused, formal request for quote for its planned Enterprise Information Portal. The department is using Interoperability Clearinghouse's Solution Architecture Information Lab system to gain a better understanding of the technology and services available, a Homeland Security spokesman says. "Normally, you do an RFP and you get inundated with offers," he says. The department plans to award a contract by the end of June.

The Solution Architecture Information Lab, or Sail, is "a mechanism that can level the playing field for government and contractors," says John Weiler, Interoperability Clearinghouse's executive director. Sail essentially is a database of best practices shared by government contractors and their public-sector clients.

The decision to hire Interoperability Clearinghouse came directly from Steve Cooper, who served as Homeland Security's inaugural CIO until last week, when he left and took the CIO position at the Red Cross. The idea behind bringing in a firm like Interoperability Clearinghouse was to reduce the IT project's time and cost and "get it right the first time," the department spokesman says.

Homeland Security is essentially looking to implement a next-generation portal to consolidate the more than 20 portals and 150 Web sites that have been independently developed and managed since the department was formed from 22 agencies. Homeland Security has a primary intranet, called DHS Online, but different internal agencies, including the Transportation and Security Administration and the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, formerly FEMA, also have their own intranet sites as well.

The vision for the Enterprise Information Portal is to make all of the department's online tools and information available from a single site. One such tool will be the Electronically Managing Enterprise Resources for Government Efficiency and Effectiveness, or Emerge2, application, which will pull together administrative and financial systems across the department. BearingPoint Inc. has been working on Emerge2 since September.

Not surprisingly, Interoperability Clearinghouse sees its role as one of helping the government improve the quality of its IT projects, eliminate waste, and cut costs. The group has previously worked with large federal agencies, including the Health and Human Services Department, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other areas of the Defense Department.

As part of its engagement with Homeland Security, Interoperability Clearinghouse solicited ideas from 67 integrators and software vendors for their vision of the Enterprise Information Portal. During this process, they "articulated their experiences implementing enterprise portals," Weiler says. By the end of May, Interoperability Clearinghouse will deliver a report to Homeland Security that summarizes and analyzes these responses.