The US Government's march towards public transparency continues with the recent launch of the IT Dashboard, a visualization of Federal "information technology investments" and part of the massive USASpending.gov effort.
The still-in-beta site displays information on over 7000 investments with detailed data for over 10% of them, mostly the ones categorized as "major" investments. Each investment is ranked by its manager on a five-point scale ranging from low-risk to high-risk, based on a large number of factors. With almost 7% of the investments at high-risk, a debate will certainly ensue around to the government's ability to manage particular types of IT projects and investments, especially when each department is considered individually. For example, the Department of Veteran's Affairs seems particularly troubled with a whopping 82% of its $2.6 billion in investments considered high-risk -- especially when compared to the $1.6 billion investments by Department of Energy, 96% of which have little or no risk.
The data is updated frequently and while the graphics are slightly misleading (they are in 3-D) and have a garish color palette, they are easy to read and easy to process.
For a spot-on negative and extensive critique of the site, read this post by Stephen Fry.
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