Maine’s project management office is branching out, CIO says

Maine’s project management office is stepping out from its usual limited role within the state government and assisting a wider array of projects, state Chief Information Officer Fred Brittain recently told StateScoop.

“They’re getting a lot of new exposure,” Brittain said of the office during the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ annual conference last month. “They’ve been heavily involved to develop work-from-home policies for the state and trying to bring together all the things we need to do around the training and the policy. They really stepped out and are doing a lot more than the traditional IT project owner.”

He said the office is also facilitating the use of data — on business cases and milestones — to inform operations.

In the interview, Brittain also touched on the state’s plans to spend its federal relief funding, with allocations for cybersecurity, remote work and his pet project, a digital citizen portal.

Beyond federal funding, Maine has also created a general appropriation for cybersecurity. He said the state hired an outside firm to assess the maturity of its cybersecurity, which he plans to use to approach the legislature for additional funding. 

“It gives us a metrics-based approach to improving a security program and it gives us a narrative to talk to leaders about where we stand and what our next step should be,” Brittain said.