Gerry Gingrich is director of the Advanced Management Program at the iCollege of the National Defense University

On May 1st, I attended the 2015 AGA CFO-CIO Summit at the Washington Marriott. The focus was on the new role of information technology – digitizing and reaching the customer in new ways. How can we do that when reaching the customer in existing digital ways is still problematic?

Forrester Research recently concluded that agencies should focus on improving existing digital services before moving to implement new services. Aaron Boyd pointed out in an April 28th Federal Times article that citizens are concerned about the security of their personal data stored in federal systems, and this concern drives their focus on strengthening and securing existing services rather than building new systems. In general, the federal customer experience or CX, a measure of how citizens perceive their interactions with the Federal government, is not strong.

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One panel at the CFO-CIO Summit focused on increasing the unity of effort in the C-suite between CFOs and CIOs in order to achieve better digitization and a higher CX. This is a tough challenge, however. CFOs have different career paths than CIOs, and training and education of the two groups do not overlap, except in a few places. One of those places is the National Defense University's iCollege, where certificate and masters programs overlap for existing and future CFOs and CIOs. Indeed, the iCollege was founded in 1989 by the DoD Comptroller in an effort to control and manage the escalating costs of information technology. Courses at the college span the gamut from budgeting to emerging technologies — critical subject areas for both CIOs and CFOs if we are to achieve the summit's emphasis on unity of effort.

A second panel at the CFO-CIO Summit emphasized shared services in the Federal government as key to achieving a higher CX. As with many challenges in the information technology world, shared services depend largely on organizational and inter-organizational collaboration and communication. Collaboration and communication between CFOs and CIOs have certainly increased in recent years with greater access to the C-Suite for both groups. However both groups are naturally inclined to hold information close and to share data only when necessary. Learning and adapting to collaborate and communicate in a more open fashion is a sea change for most individuals responsible for maintaining the security of financial and information technology systems. Again, courses at the iCollege that focus on leadership, decision making, and organizational culture can help to move this adaptation forward.

As information and digitization continue their ever increasing pace, education is one of the smartest – and most cost effective – strategies for strengthening the Federal government's digital CX. Putting CFOs and CIOs in the classroom together moves us one step further toward success.

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