It has been 3 years since the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began requiring federal agencies to report their IT spending through the Technology Business Management (TBM) framework. The goal? To better understand how agencies invest in IT. TBM provides a taxonomy that links business capabilities to both finance and IT, giving organizations a single language that everyone can understand and providing decision makers with data to weigh tradeoffs among IT cost, consumption, and performance. The transition to TBM is considered so important that it was included in the President’s Management Agenda, requiring all federal agencies to convert to the TBM model by fiscal year 2022.
The drive towards greater transparency is evident in federal initiatives and policies such as the IT Dashboard, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), and Federal IT Acquisitions Reform Act (FITARA). FITARA gave CIOs increased power and responsibility around the management of their IT ecosystem, which makes the transition to TBM more than a requirement: it’s an opportunity. While TBM has the potential to transform how agencies use IT and inform IT investment decisions, many agencies continue to struggle with this new approach. Many private-sector organizations use the TBM framework, but public-sector organizations may misunderstand how TBM can positively impact each federal agency.
Here are 5 myths about TBM at federal organizations—and the reality.