Report 2014-602 Recommendation 7 Responses

Report 2014-602: High Risk Update—California Department of Technology: Lack of Guidance, Potentially Conflicting Roles, and Staffing Issues Continue to Make Oversight of State Information Technology Projects High Risk (Release Date: March 2015)

Recommendation #7 To: Technology, California Department of

To better track its oversight actions and sponsoring agencies' responses to these actions, CalTech should retain the briefing documents created for the State CIO's portfolio meetings and the project status reports that sponsoring agencies submit while project oversight is ongoing.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2016

In working with CSA, ITPOD successfully developed a new folder system in SharePoint to capture and retain each month's Briefing Document for all projects subject to CDT oversight. Screen copies of this new folder system and a sample of non-confidential information will be forwarded to CSA this month for closure of this recommendation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented


1-Year Agency Response

Briefing Documents are being saved in ITPOD Share Point system. Copies of saved briefing documents and recorded action items from portfolio meetings were previously provided to the auditors as evidence of completion. (Recent examples are attached)

a. The expectation that every staff member must maintain and update the briefing document is included in an ITPOD Principles and Expectations document.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

Caltech's response does not address the retention of project status reports that agencies submit while project oversight is ongoing.


6-Month Agency Response

ITPOD staff are saving the briefing documents and recording action items from portfolio meetings in the SharePoint e-File room.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

During our follow up with CalTech to obtain documentation to support its response, CalTech informed us that its e-File room in SharePoint needs to be modified to implement version control so that when a new briefing document is uploaded it does not overwrite the prior version. Also, CalTech believes that its PPM Central System that is used to publish project status reports on its public website has a bug that may affect the presentation of the reports' information. As a result, CalTech is still working to fully implement our recommendation to retain briefing documents and project status reports.


60-Day Agency Response

Plan for Implementation:

- Develop a written process for ITPOD staff to follow to retain all briefing documents and project status reports while the projects are in an active status - in process

- Develop a location in SharePoint for retention of action items from Portfolio meetings - not started

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending


All Recommendations in 2014-602

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.