California state agencies, departments and entities are no longer required to submit IT capital plans (ITCP) annually to the Department of Technology. Instead the state will publish a list of “conceptually approved projects” each quarter as part of its new IT project approval process.
The Department of Technology said months ago that this change would be coming. The new guidance is contained in an Oct. 31 technology letter.
“The improvements to the Project Approval Lifecycle have resulted in greater emphasis on project planning and organizational readiness. These enhancements have incorporated much of the investment prioritization, business planning and strategic integration that the annual ITCP was intended to achieve at the Agency/state entity level,” the letter says.
The list of conceptually approved projects will be populated through the approval process’s Stage 1 Business Analysis workflow. Stage 1 analyses may be submitted anytime, the Department of Technology said.
“With the introduction of the Stage / Gate model and the recent rollout of Stage 1 and Stage 2 processes, and the elimination of the FSR [Feasibility Study Report], we’re now able to accept thos proposals – those S1Bas – on an ongoing basis,” said Department of Technology Chief Deputy Director Andrea Wallin-Rohmann told Techwire in an interview in August.
“So departments can submit them at any point in the process. What that then also means is that an IT capital plan doesn’t need to be done once a year, but it can be done more frequently. It can be done with real live data or information,” she added.
The yearly IT capital plan process was initiated in 2008. The Department of Technology accepted project proposals from agencies and departments in October of each year and then released an annual IT capital plan each spring.
