As Techwire reported this week, state CIO Carlos Ramos is leaving the public sector at the end of March, putting an end to his five-year run as the state government’s top technology official.
In his retirement announcement to staff on Wednesday, Ramos listed the Department of Technology’s key accomplishments.
Ramos mentioned the state’s new IT project approval process, a “strengthened” state information security program, a reformed procurement process, the creation of a new project management office for California and a new “career ladder for state project professionals.”
He also cited an “invigorated” professional development program for the state IT community, the creation of the California Mobile App Gallery, launching a new innovation office, support of the statewide geospatial portal, and work toward a pilot for a contractor performance evaluation scorecard.
“In addition, we stepped in to get several significant IT projects back on track and to bring to a close projects that were on the road to failure,” Ramos wrote in his email to staff.
Ramos elaborated on a few of the department’s accomplishments during a brief phone interview with Techwire on Wednesday afternoon. He said the Department of Technology’s focus on the issues that cause IT projects to have problems or to fail, as well as steps toward professionalizing the state’s IT workforce via leadership development programs and other measures, might have the most lasting impact for the state.
“I think we’ve done a lot to address that and I think that will pay dividends in the long run,” Ramos said.
Ramos also said he believes the state’s cloud computing projects and its private cloud, called CalCloud, is moving in the right direction and will continue to grow. He said it’s been helpful that state departments and agencies are becoming more comfortable with cloud computing, and that companies are agreeing to standard terms and conditions that are unique to government. It’s enabling the state to grow the portfolio of cloud-based and hosted services it offers, he said.
Ramos’ successor — the Government Operations Agency says it will conduct an “extensive” search for the next state CIO — will inherit many of those aforementioned IT initiatives amid what appears to be a changing landscape from an organizational standpoint.
More agencies arguably are now engaged on technology initiatives than five years ago, leading to a broader range of leading agencies. For example, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services appears to be taking a prominent role in statewide cybersecurity efforts via a new threat intelligence integration center, while the Government Operations Agency seems to be bolstering innovation-focused projects.
At the same time, the Office of Systems Integration is adding more large-scale, statewide health IT projects to its management portfolio, while the Department of Technology simultaneously builds out its own Project Management Office. Meanwhile, the wide-reaching Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) project is on a path to becoming its own standalone government department.
These changes conceivably might trigger further evolution at the Department of Technology.
Ramos credited the department's staff for progress made the past five years.
“I think we have a very solid team over there,” Ramos said about the technology department. “I’m very happy for all of their work.”
