Meet the CIOs: SSA

Social Security Administration:
John Dyer

JOHN R. DYER
Social Security Administration
6401 Security Blvd. #960
Baltimore, MD 21235
Phone: 410-965-9000
Fax: 410-965-9971
E-mail: john.dyer@ssa.gov

Career Highlights:

1996-Present: SSA acting principal deputy commissioner
1988-96: Variety of SSA positions, including deputy commissioner for finance, assessment and management
1984-88: Director of management and budget, Health Care Financing Administration
1973-84: Variety of budget positions at OMB

IT Budget (fiscal years):
1996: $500 million
1997: $460 million
1998: $430 million

Priority Projects:

• Intelligent Workstation/Local Area Network Infrastructure - installing new distributed computing network
• Workflow Management System - imaging system for processing cases
• Interactive Distance Learning - using videoconferencing to do training at field installations

Biggest Challenges:

"We need to define performance goals from all relevant perspectives, including the public, Congress, employees and other stakeholders. Our challenge is to ensure that the performance goals presented outside the agency define our priorities, formulate and support our budget and publicly report our performance. The next challenge is to define our strategies for achieving the performance goals and align our IT and other initiatives with those strategies. This will enable us to maximize IT investments, manage risk and target agency performance to get the greatest bang for the buck."

Management Approach:

"We recently developed an investment review methodology to provide for milestone reviews at key decision points."

Hottest Technologies:

"Internet/intranet technology is having a meaningful impact on our ability to communicate with and provide new and improved services to our customers and employees. Imaging technology is enabling productivity improvements. And advanced computer operating software such as Windows NT and OS/2 is enabling enterprise deployment of more robust applications."