| Summary: | In fiscal year 1994, the federal government obligated more than $23.5 billion towards information technology (IT) products and services, which represents about five percent of its total discretionary spending. The Clinger- Cohen Act of 1996 was enacted by the U.S. Congress to help prevent wasteful government spending on IT projects by mandating that federal agencies develop a process to manage their IT projects as investments, including methods to continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their management processes. The goal of this study was to develop a model to assess a government agency's IT management processes, specifically the selection, control, and evaluation of IT investments. In order to accomplish this, various General Accounting Office (GAO) reports were reviewed to determine the best practices being used to manage IT investments. Also, model was developed that can be applied to an agency that already has some IT management processes in place. The major finding was that, while the critical processes and attributes identified by GAO are helpful in implementing improvements to an agency's processes, each individual agency needs to carefully assess the environment in which it operates and choose the management tools and techniques that best fit the agency's vision and mission and its specific environment.
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