Obama Team Gets to Replace At Least a Dozen Departmental CIOs

There's been a lot of press given to plans by President-elect Barack Obama to create a federal chief technology officer job. In addition, the Obama administration will get the chance to name many other high-level technology leaders, including at least a dozen CIOs at federal cabinet departments.

In the federal government, some CIOs are political appointees and others are career civil servants. It's those political posts that the Obama team can fill with new appointees. I blogged about career vs. political CIOs a few years back.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, analyzed the role of departmental CIOs in 2004 (I couldn't locate a more recent report). To prepare the report, GAO interviewed 39 incumbent and former federal CIOs, and found a lack of consensus on whether the government and public are better service with CIOs who are political appointees or career civil servants. Here's what David Powner, GAO director of IT management issues, wrote:

Some believed that political CIOs could be more effective because they might have more access to, and influence with, the agency head. Others believed that CIOs in career positions could be more effective because, for example, they would be more likely to understand the agency, including its culture and work environment.

A chart from the GAO report showed the breakdown in 2004 between political and career CIOs, and how long they served (click on chart to enlarge):

Source: Government Accountability Office