Progress Report

The White House has a nifty new tool for tracking the progress of information technology projects throughout the government.

According to the "IT Dashboard" Web site, the Defense Department has 62 "major investments" slated to consume $9.6 billion this fiscal year.

In a series of simple charts and tables, viewers can quickly see the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of cost and schedule.

Out of DOD's major projects, three are flagged red in the "overall" category, which considers cost, schedule and an as-yet unfilled "agency evaluation" field. Red stands for "significant concerns." The overall red projects are the Cheyenne Mountain Complex/Tactical Warning-Attack Assessment, the Expeditionary Combat Support System and the Net-Centric Enterprise Services programs, according to the site.

The site offers fields to identify the prime contractor for each project. But we found that the information was lacking in most cases when we visited the site this afternoon.

Noteworthy fine print: All information on the "IT Dashboard" is based on figures reported by the agencies themselves.