Describe the Department of Defense's use of enterprise information technology standard business case analysis
In 2011, when the Federal CIO took a forward-leaning approach toward embracing cloud computing, he also noted that agencies should select which services to move to the cloud, identify sources of value, and provision services in the most effective manner.
Rather than simply moving every workload to the cloud, he sought to prioritize those workloads that would bring the most value first, and save on costs in doing so.
The mandated approach was to perform a business case analysis, or BCA.
With millions of existing and proposed workloads running across the entire government, the Department of Defense realized that a standard template would need to be created to ensure the analysis was an objective one, and that data supported the argument.
On October 23, 2014, the DoD issued the "Use of Enterprise Information Technology Standard Business Case Analysis" memorandum.
Business case analysis template
The memorandum provides a template that seeks to "ensure consistency, facilitate comparisons of proposed alternatives, and clearly define costs, benefits, operational impacts, and risks."
This memorandum provides a single template for CIOs to use to determine the impact of using the cloud for budget and governance. Prior to this memorandum, each group was able to create its own mechanisms for determining how effective the cloud would be, which lead to inconsistent results.
Scope
The business case analysis template, per the memorandum, becomes a requirement, and not an option, for all military department CIOs. The template and process also become a requirement for not just cloud computing but "all IT investments."
Customization
While the template may be tailored based upon the scope and nature of the project, it is to be used as a standardized "starting point" for the examination of value brought by IT investments.