GAO Profiles Top Federal Mission-Critical IT Acquisitions

Key Takeaways:

• GAO released profiles with key attributes of 16 federal IT acquisitions critical to agency mission fulfillment.
• Most agencies anticipate cost savings and avoidance associated with their acquisitions due to factors such as shutting down legacy systems, eliminating paper processing, and improving security.
• The majority of the acquisitions are using a combination of development solutions, including customized software development, commercial off-the-shelf solutions, and open source software.

Information technology is critical to the federal government’s ability to fulfill missions. Due to chronic cost and schedule overruns, and other challenges for multiple federal IT acquisitions, GAO added IT acquisition and operations to its high-risk list in 2015. GAO’s specific goal for the current report and analysis was to identify essential mission-critical IT acquisitions across the federal government and determine their key attributes.

To identify the profiled acquisitions, GAO asked the 24 CFO Act agencies to identify the top five IT acquisitions key to their mission fulfillment.  From the initial list of 101 IT acquisitions, GAO used questionnaires, the IT Dashboard, FITARA, and the Presidential Management Agenda to identify the 16 acquisitions to study and profile.

For each of the 16 selected acquisitions, GAO obtained and analyzed documents on cost, schedule, risks, governance, and related information. GAO also interviewed agency officials involved with the acquisitions. GAO assembled acquisition profiles summarizing key attributes of each acquisition for their report. The profiles include IT acquisitions from 12 of the 24 CFO Act agencies.

Federal Agency Mission-Critical Information Technology Acquisitions Identified by GAO

Agriculture	Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems
Commerce	2020 Decennial Census
Defense	Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization
Defense	Global Combat Support System-Army
Homeland Security	Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Modernization
Homeland Security	U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Transformation
Interior	Automated Fluid Minerals Support System II
Justice	Next Generation Identification System
Justice	Terrorist Screening System
SBA	Application Standard Investment
SSA	Disability Case Processing System 2
State	Consular System Modernization
Transportation	Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast
Treasury	Customer Account Data Engine 2
Treasury	Integrated Enterprise Portal
Veterans Affairs	Electronic Health Record Modernization

Costs and Savings: The acquisition costs vary among agencies based on scope and complexity of the program. For example, DOD’s Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization will cost $10.2 billion over 21 years, while Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services Transformation will require only $3.2 billion over 30 years for the system that supports immigration benefits processing. Agencies anticipate potential cost savings and avoidance associated with 13 of the 16 acquisitions due to factors such as shutting down legacy systems, eliminating physical paper processing, and improving security, monitoring, and management.

Baselines: Eleven of the 16 selected acquisitions were re-baselined during their development. During the re-baseline the projects’ costs, schedules, or performance goals were modified to reflect new circumstances. Reasons for re-baselining included delays in defining the cost, schedule, and scope; budget cuts and hiring freezes; technical challenges; and changes in development approach.         

Cybersecurity: Information security is a critical component for all federal IT systems. For the IT acquisitions profiled, nearly all of them, 15 of the 16, will use Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to meet the purpose of the acquisition. Fourteen of the acquisitions will also store PII.

Timelines: Seven of the 16 acquisitions expect to be fully deployed within the next 2 years or were already deployed during the time of GAO’s review. Agencies for five of the selected acquisitions could not provide a final expected full deployment date.

Acquisition/Development Strategy: Thirteen of the 16 acquisitions are using a combination of development solutions, including customized software development by agency personnel, contractor developed software, commercial off-the-shelf software and platform solutions, and open source software. Thirteen of the 16 acquisitions are also using an agile or other type of incremental systems development lifecycle methodology. Six are using a more traditional waterfall approach.

Risks: Acquisition risks identified by the agencies include implementation, information privacy and security, cost and budget, and schedule and organization.

Implementation Challenges: Agencies also reported that they face several challenges such as workforce issues, technical challenges, schedule slippages, inadequate funding, and budget constraints. Workforce issues include contract transitions, inadequate skills among contract staff, or delays in onboarding contractor and federal support. Technical challenges include transitioning to a cloud environment, unexpected complexity of the system, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.