Program Guide

CONCURRENT
SEMINARS
Wednesday, February 1
10:00 -11:30 am
The Annual Executive Roundtable
Moderator: Larry Olson, Chief Technical
Officer, State of Texas
Speakers: Pete Anderson, Chief Information
Officer, City of Fort Worth, Texas (invited)
Peter Cooper, Chief Technology Officer,
County of El Paso
Adam Jones, Associate Commissioner Finance
& Technology, Texas Education Agency
Rick Webb, National Director, State and Local
CIO Agenda, Accenture
SLIGhTLY TEChNICAL
Government organizations are facing major
ongoing changes and can benefit from a road
map to make the transition from merely having
sets of projects underway to linking those
projects to business objectives, having well
developed portfolio management and a governance
model for the entire process.
Governance embodies the responsibilities,
practices and organizational policies used to
achieve the goals of the organization. Progress
towards this transition within organizations as
well as across the enterprise will be the focus
for discussion in this session. You will leave
this session with a better understanding of
governance and ideas for improving the effectiveness
of your organization.
The ROI of Software Process Improvement
in IT Organizations
Speaker: Dr. Herb Krasner, Founder, Software
Quality Institute, University of Texas
MODERATELY TEChNICAL
Organizations which invest heavily in IT and
make corresponding changes to their processes
tend to be more productive and valuable. Software
development, integration and evolution
are the major elements that enable IT to provide
valuable services. This session presents
the ROI case and body of evidence for improving
your software processes. It is specifically
geared at IT decision makers and will help you
understand WHY you should invest in software
process improvement.
Making the Grade: Self-Assessment Tools
for Your Organization
Speaker: Joe Duck, HP
SLIGhTLY TEChNICAL
In the quest to improve organizational effectiveness,
there are various self-assessment
tools that can help to achieve the targeted goals.
These tools use different approaches and methods
to gather information about a current situation
or performance. The bottom line is to get
some metric or estimate of how things stack up
against a standard.
Some of the assessments in play for government
organizations provide methods to evaluate
security programs and controls, while others
measure the sophistication of technology development
systems. Still others help to pinpoint
and evaluate project management or process
maturity or IT investment management.
This seminar will provide a look at various
tools available and provide some examples and
case studies to illuminate their use and results.
Wednesday, February 1
1:30 - 2:45 pm
Effective Governance Models for
Technology Reuse
Speaker: Dustin Lanier, Director of Strategic
Initiatives, Texas Department of
Information Resources
SLIGhTLY TEChNICAL
By designing and implementing tax payerfunded
projects so that key assets or processes
can be leveraged in future initiatives, Texas can
reduce costs and delivery time. Incorporating
a culture of reuse into agency architectures,
coordinated as appropriate from a statewide
level, sets the stage for reduced cost and rapid
deployment of new projects in the future.
This session will explore findings from a
Forrester research and discovery effort initiated
by DIR, including opportunities, barriers,
and practices that influence technology reuse
across Texas government.
Optimizing Your Infrastructure
Speaker: Tiffany Ulch, HP
hIGhLY TEChNICAL
In a continuing effort to improve efficiency
and reduce costs, government IT leaders aim
to leverage their existing technology. The role
of legacy systems and the integration of newer
technologies also play into optimization.
The session takes a look at various methods
and results of such efforts as platform partitioning,
virtualization, hardware consolidation, performance
monitoring and application tuning.
It will include perspectives from both public and
private sectors and will provide a status report on
government efforts toward such optimization.
The Changing Workforce:
Urgent Challenges and Strategies
Speaker: Joe Hessmiller, Director,
CAI Systems
NOT TEChNICAL
In a continuing effort to improve efficiency
and reduce costs, government IT leaders aim
to leverage their existing technology. The role
of legacy systems and the integration of newer
technologies also play into optimization.
The session takes a look at various methods
and results of such efforts as platform partitioning,
virtualization, hardware consolidation,
performance monitoring and application tuning.
It will include perspectives from both public and
private sectors and will provide a status report on
government efforts toward such optimization.
Wednesday, February 1
3:00 - 4:00 pm
how to Align Your Architecture with an
Enterprise Architecture
SLIGhTLY TEChNICAL
The ability to create a real-time response
mechanism between business drivers and your
technology environment will provide not only
an improved ability to capitalize on changing
business conditions but also drive cost out of
your day-to-day operations.
This session will address the alignment
between your technology infrastructure and
the needs of your business. Furthermore, it will
address the business and IT architecture in
your own organization as they relate to other
efforts in the larger cross-boundary architecture,
real or envisioned. This synchronization
will also provide a better understanding of the
integration of people, processes, and technology
in building a flexible/adaptive linkage
among all stakeholders in a department.
State of the Art of
Service-Oriented Architecture
Moderator: Dustin Lanier, Director of
Strategic Initiatives, Texas Department of
Information Resources
Speakers: Mohammed Farooq, CTO,
Texas Health & Human Services Commission
Gary Gumbert, CIO, Texas Health & Human
Services Commission
Curtis Howe, Director of Information
Systems Texas, Department of Housing and
Community Affairs
MODERATELY TEChNICAL
Service-Oriented architecture, as a concept,
has grown up in the private sector and for
several years has been a focus of attention in
public sector software development activities.
As a general concept, it can be an effective way
to incorporate reuse strategies, rapidly reduce
development timeframes, leverage existing
investments, and enhance productivity. Its success
depends on a number of factors related to
enterprise architecture, planning and organizational
issues and resource commitments.
This session will explore the strategic value
of a service-oriented architecture, the barriers
to be overcome for it to be successfully realized,
and the examples of its successful deployment
in Texas government.
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