The federal chief information officer attitudes toward the IT Dashboard can be summed up as one of skeptical approbation, according to information from an annual survey of agency information technology officials unveiled May 4.

The survey, conducted by industry lobbying group TechAmerica and Grant Thornton, and now in its 21^st year, is a result of interviews with 46 IT officials, including the CIOs or deputy CIOs of 12 cabinet departments.

"'Good idea! Needs work' is a good summary of CIOs' opinions" of the dashboard, the survey states. The Office of Management and Budget launched the dashboard in June 2009 and says it uses information on it to select agency IT programs for "TechStat" reviews. Since its launch, the dashboard has come under repeated criticism by the Government Accountability Office for bad data quality.

Many CIOs told survey interviewers they like the IT Dashboard, but some also questioned its use as a management tool since it does not always reflect the current status of an IT program. Survey participants also said the "TechStat" reviews that can result from certain indicators on the dashboard are useful, although some also decried what they described as a "gotcha" atmosphere to the meetings.

When asked to name their biggest worry, CIOs collectively said an inadequate budget tops the list. Worries about funding in previous years stretching back to 2007 had only been CIOs' third worry, with "conflicting priorities among program units" generally being the top concern in years past. This year, conflicting priorities sunk to number two.

The survey was conducted before Congress settled on a spending bill to cover the remainder of the current fiscal year; at the time, federal agencies were funded with a series of short-term spending measures. When asked to name their priorities, the top three of lowering costs, integrating systems and processes and implementing security and privacy measures were ranked so closley that TechAmerica, decided to give them all first place ranking. 

For more:
- download the TechAmerica 21^st annual federal CIO survey (.pdf)

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