The Department of Information Technology will deliver quality and innovative information technology solutions to provide citizens, the business community and County staff with convenient access to appropriate information and services.

Goal 1: Deliver timely and effective responses to customer requirements through teamwork.

Goal 2: Provide vision, leadership, and a framework for evaluating emerging technologies and implementing proven information technology solutions.

Goal 3: Provide citizens, the business community and County staff with convenient access to appropriate information and services through technology.

Goal 4: Work with County agencies to improve business operations by thoroughly understanding business needs and by planning, implementing and managing the best information technology solutions available.

Goal 5: Guarantee a reliable communication and computer infrastructure foundation on which to efficiently conduct County business operations today and in the future.

Goal 6: Effectively communicate information about plans, projects, and achievements to County staff and customers.

Ten IT Fundamental Principles

Our ultimate goal is to provide citizens, the business community, and County employees with timely, convenient access to appropriate information and services through the use of technology.
 

1. Business needs drive information technology solutions. Strategic partnerships will be established between the customer and County so that the benefits of IT are leveraged to maximize the productivity of County employees and improve customer services.
    
2. Evaluate business processes for redesign opportunities before automating them. Use new technologies to make new business methods a reality. Exploit functional commonality across organizational boundaries.
    
3. Manage Information Technology as an investment.
   • Annually allocate funds sufficient to cover depreciation to replace systems and equipment before life-cycle end. Address project and infrastructure requirements through a multi-year planning and funding strategy.
   • Limit resources dedicated to "legacy systems" -- hardware and software approaching the end of its useful life -- to absolutely essential or mandated changes. Designate systems as "legacy" and schedule their replacement. This approach will help focus investments toward the future rather than the present of past.
   • Invest in education and training to ensure the technical staffs in central IT and user-agencies understand and can apply current and future technologies.
      
4. Implement contemporary, but proven, technologies. Fairfax County will stay abreast of emerging trends through an ongoing program of technology evaluation. New technologies will often be introduced through pilot projects where both the automation and its business benefits and costs can be evaluated prior to any full-scale adoption.
    
5. Hardware and software will adhere to open (vendor-independent) standards and minimize proprietary solutions. This approach will promote flexibility, inter-operability, cost effectiveness, and mitigate the risk of dependence on individual vendors.
    
6. Manage the enterprise network as a fundamental building block of the County's IT architecture. The network will connect modern workstations and servers; will provide both internal and external connectivity; will be flexible, expandable, and maintainable; be fully integrated using open standards and capable of providing for the free movement of data, graphics, image, video, and voice.
    
7. Approach IT undertakings as a partnership of central management and agencies providing for a combination of centralized and distributed implementation. Combine the responsibility and knowledge of central management, agency staff, as well as outside contract support within a consistent framework of County IT standards. Establish strategic cooperative arrangements with public and private enterprises to extend limited resources.
    
8. Emphasize the purchase and integration of top quality, commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS) -- with minimal customization -- to speed the delivery of new business applications. This will require redesigning some existing work processes to be compatible with off-the-shelf software packages. Utilize modern efficient methods and laborsaving tools in a cooperative application development environment. A repository for common information objects (e.g., databases, files, records, methods, application inventories) will be created, shared and reused.
    
9. Capture data once in order to avoid cost, duplication of effort and potential for error and share the data whenever possible. Establish and use common data and common databases to the fullest extent. A data administration function will be responsible for establishing and enforcing data policy, data sharing and access, data standardization, data quality, identification and consistent use of key corporate identifiers.