Wall Street Journal
By Angus Loten
February 5, 2016
Bimodal
information technology lets companies capture value from new
technologies and trends aimed at driving future growth, while also
keeping day-to-day IT systems up
and running.
But can it also help crack down on illegal immigrants?
U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services this week said it’s looking for a
deputy chief information officer for operations, according to a job
posting Thursday.
The
agency, a branch of the federal Department of Homeland Security that
handles immigrant visas, green cards and other paperwork, is under
pressure to boost its technology
capabilities in the wake of terror attacks in California and Paris and
the ongoing refugee crisis worldwide. Last year, it began working with
the State Department and other federal services to digitize visa
applications.
The
new hire will join current Deputy CIO Keith Jones, who becomes the
agency’s principal deputy CIO. Both will report to agency CIO Mark
Schwartz.
The
move is part of an internal restructuring that will see IT
responsibilities divided along the lines of a bimodal model: “Having two
deputies to manage both the transformational
initiatives and the day-to-day running of the agency’s IT capabilities
is the clear path forward,” Mr. Jones told CIO Journal.
As
of the end of September, the agency’s IT office had nearly 450
full-time employees, as well as numerous outside contractors, with some
$527 million in recurring costs
and $85 million in enabling costs, he said. In recent years, the agency
has transitioned to a DevOps and Agile approach to IT systems, with
software-defined networking and new cloud-based tools, among other
strategies.
“The
size, complexity, and nature of the organization in terms of daily
support and transformation requires additional leadership at the highest
level of the organization,”
Mr. Jones said.
According
to the job posting, the new deputy CIO for operations “conceives plans,
directs and coordinates through the subordinate supervisors and
managers the full range
of IT needs” at the agency.
The
ideal candidate will “understand contemporary IT delivery practices in
private industry, and be able to make them work in the federal
government,” the posting said.
The
goal of bimodal IT, a term coined by tech industry research firm
Gartner Inc.IT -1.39%, is to develop a higher-speed digital unit that
can race ahead of more cumbersome
traditional IT systems, which are necessary to daily business operation
but can hold back innovation. The bimodal model is far from universally
accepted, but it’s spreading fast, according to Gartner research chief
Peter Sondergaard.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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