Ask the CIO

Department of Veterans Affairs

Dr. Paul Tibbits Deputy Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Development July 24th, 2008

Federal News Network Staff

July 23, 2008 10:36 am

< a min read

Dr. Paul Tibbits – Deputy Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Development

The Veterans Affairs Department is one of the few agencies that still develops much of its own software.

In the past two years, VA consolidated all of its development work under one office.

Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA’s Deputy Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Development, leads that group.

Tibbits says this unified approach has pushed VA into a better position to implement standards, move to a service-oriented architecture and use common tools for development.

He also says the consolidation might have had a bigger impact at the VA in terms of accountability.

Tibbits says it is now clearer than ever who is in charge of each project and what the cost and schedule is suppose to be. As a result, there is an integrated set of priorities to implement software.

VA is working on several large programs from HealtheVet to its news financial and logistics system called FLITE. Tibbits’ office is trying to keep these on track.