Chapter 1 - VITA's Purpose and Scope

1.8.1 CIO approval and oversight required for certain IT projects

The Commonwealth CIO shall review certain projects and recommend whether they be approved or disapproved, or require VITA oversight (see § 2.2-2017 of the Code of Virginia.) The CIO will disapprove any procurement that does not conform to the Commonwealth strategic plan for information technology developed and approved pursuant to § 2.2-2007 or to the individual IT strategic plans (ITSPs) of agencies or public institutions of higher education. 

IT investments by agencies must be added to their respective ITSP by requesting Investment Business Case (IBC) approval and Procurement Business Alignment (PBA) approval by the CIO, coordinated by the IT Investment Management (ITIM) group.  After receiving PBA approval, the agency must request CIO approval to begin the procurement process (procurement execution) via the Procurement Governance Review (PGR) process. VITA staff will review to ensure that the procurement conforms to the agency’s Information Technology Strategic Plan (ITSP) the statewide IT strategic plan and compliance with required Commonwealth Policies, Standards and Guidelines (PSGs) and certain IT and VITA related statutory laws. The VITA divisions who conduct the review are: Enterprise Architecture, Security, SCM, Project Management Division (PMD), and Customer Account Managers. Additionally, VITA’s Enterprise Cloud Oversight Services (ECOS) will review all procurements that involve off-premise hosting (i.e., SaaS). PMD has the responsibility to coordinate the review and deliver, to the CIO, a recommendation for his action. Visit this website for more information on the PGR process and agency requirements: https://vita.virginia.gov/supply-chain/scm-policies-forms/summary-of- vitas- procurement-delegation/ 

For more information on VITA’s governance and oversight of certain IT projects, refer to the “Project Management Standard (CPM 112-03)” found at: https://vita.virginia.gov/it- governance/itrm-policies-standards/.