USDA Systems Modernization
Management and Oversight Improvements Are Needed Gao ID: GAO-11-586 July 20, 2011The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) is responsible for administering billions of dollars annually in program benefits to farmers and ranchers. Since 2004, FSA has been planning to modernize its information technology (IT) systems that process these benefits with the Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) program. GAO was asked to determine (1) the scope and status of MIDAS, (2) whether MIDAS has appropriate program management, and (3) whether MIDAS has appropriate executive oversight and governance. To do so, GAO reviewed relevant department guidance and program documents and interviewed USDA officials.
FSA plans to modernize the systems supporting its 37 farm programs with MIDAS. The implementation cost estimate is approximately $305 million, with a life cycle cost of approximately $473 million. However, the implementation cost estimate is uncertain because it has not been updated since 2007 and does not include cost elements that have since been identified, such as the selection of a commercial enterprise resource planning product. Following completion of its initial phase of program planning in October 2010, MIDAS entered its second of four phases--proof of concept and system design. However, the schedule for this phase, which was to be completed in October 2011, is now uncertain. While FSA officials report that the proof of concept activities are proceeding as scheduled, they have delayed a requirements review milestone until December 2011 and have not yet set a new date for the design review. As a result, the completion date for the second phase and its impact on subsequent phases is uncertain. FSA officials plan to revisit the cost and schedule estimates after completing requirements definition. FSA's program management approach includes many leading practices, but could be strengthened. For example, prior to the proof of concept and system design phase, plans were in place for organizational change and communication, requirements management, and risk. However, a few practices were either partially addressed or not addressed at all in program plans or in the implementation of those plans. For example, an integrated team has not yet been formed with representatives from IT programs that MIDAS depends on for its success. Moreover, the plans do not explicitly call for, and FSA has not produced, a schedule that reflects dependencies with those programs, and risks are not being regularly tracked as planned. FSA's uneven adoption of leading practices is likely to limit the agency's effectiveness in managing system development, and thus its ability to deliver system capabilities on time and within budget. Executive-level governance for MIDAS has not been clearly defined and does not fully follow department IT investment management guidance. Specifically, oversight and governance has been assigned to several department and agency bodies, but roles and escalation criteria are not clearly defined among them. Department officials reported that department guidance is being followed for monthly status reviews, but not for department-level reviews at key decision points. The lack of clarity and definition for the roles of the governance bodies could result in duplication or voids in program oversight, as well as wasted resources. Moreover, because MIDAS is not being governed according to the department's investment guidance, the department may not be rigorously monitoring and managing the program and its risks, and may not have the information it needs to make timely and appropriate decisions to ensure the success of MIDAS. GAO is recommending that USDA update cost and schedule estimates, address management weaknesses in plans and program execution, and clarify the roles and coordination among governance bodies. USDA agreed with GAO's recommendations and described plans to address them.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: David A. Powner Team: Government Accountability Office: Information Technology Phone: (202) 512-9286GAO-11-586, USDA Systems Modernization: Management and Oversight Improvements Are Needed
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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Report to Congressional Committees:
July 2011:
USDA Systems Modernization:
Management and Oversight Improvements Are Needed:
GAO-11-586:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-11-586, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
The United States Department of Agriculture‘s (USDA) Farm Service
Agency (FSA) is responsible for administering billions of dollars
annually in program benefits to farmers and ranchers. Since 2004, FSA
has been planning to modernize its information technology (IT) systems
that process these benefits with the Modernize and Innovate the
Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) program.
GAO was asked to determine (1) the scope and status of MIDAS, (2)
whether MIDAS has appropriate program management, and (3) whether
MIDAS has appropriate executive oversight and governance. To do so,
GAO reviewed relevant department guidance and program documents and
interviewed USDA officials.
What GAO Found:
FSA plans to modernize the systems supporting its 37 farm programs
with MIDAS. The implementation cost estimate is approximately $305
million, with a life cycle cost of approximately $473 million.
However, the implementation cost estimate is uncertain because it has
not been updated since 2007 and does not include cost elements that
have since been identified, such as the selection of a commercial
enterprise resource planning product. Following completion of its
initial phase of program planning in October 2010, MIDAS entered its
second of four phases”proof of concept and system design. However, the
schedule for this phase, which was to be completed in October 2011, is
now uncertain. While FSA officials report that the proof of concept
activities are proceeding as scheduled, they have delayed a
requirements review milestone until December 2011 and have not yet set
a new date for the design review. As a result, the completion date for
the second phase and its impact on subsequent phases is uncertain. FSA
officials plan to revisit the cost and schedule estimates after
completing requirements definition.
FSA‘s program management approach includes many leading practices, but
could be strengthened. For example, prior to the proof of concept and
system design phase, plans were in place for organizational change and
communication, requirements management, and risk. However, a few
practices were either partially addressed or not addressed at all in
program plans or in the implementation of those plans. For example, an
integrated team has not yet been formed with representatives from IT
programs that MIDAS depends on for its success. Moreover, the plans do
not explicitly call for, and FSA has not produced, a schedule that
reflects dependencies with those programs, and risks are not being
regularly tracked as planned. FSA‘s uneven adoption of leading
practices is likely to limit the agency‘s effectiveness in managing
system development, and thus its ability to deliver system
capabilities on time and within budget.
Executive-level governance for MIDAS has not been clearly defined and
does not fully follow department IT investment management guidance.
Specifically, oversight and governance has been assigned to several
department and agency bodies, but roles and escalation criteria are
not clearly defined among them. Department officials reported that
department guidance is being followed for monthly status reviews, but
not for department-level reviews at key decision points. The lack of
clarity and definition for the roles of the governance bodies could
result in duplication or voids in program oversight, as well as wasted
resources. Moreover, because MIDAS is not being governed according to
the department‘s investment guidance, the department may not be
rigorously monitoring and managing the program and its risks, and may
not have the information it needs to make timely and appropriate
decisions to ensure the success of MIDAS.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is recommending that USDA update cost and schedule estimates,
address management weaknesses in plans and program execution, and
clarify the roles and coordination among governance bodies. USDA
agreed with GAO‘s recommendations and described plans to address them.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-586] or key
components. For more information, contact David A. Powner at (202) 512-
9286 or pownerd@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Background:
MIDAS Is Currently Being Defined; Cost and Schedule Estimates Are
Uncertain:
MIDAS Plans Reflect Many Leading Management Practices, but Could Be
Strengthened:
MIDAS Governance Is Not Clearly Defined and Does Not Follow Department
Investment Guidance:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix II: MIDAS Farm Programs:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: MIDAS Supporting Contracts:
Table 2: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Planning and
Monitoring Practices:
Table 3: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Requirements
Management Practices:
Table 4: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Contract Management
Practices:
Table 5: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Risk Management
Practices:
Table 6: MIDAS Oversight and Governance Bodies:
Figures:
Figure 1: MIDAS Timeline:
Figure 2: Current and Proposed MIDAS Environments:
Figure 3: Implementation Schedule for MIDAS:
Abbreviations:
CMMI: Capability Maturity Model Integration:
CIO: chief information officer:
FSA: Farm Service Agency:
IT: information technology:
MIDAS: Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems:
OMB: Office of Management and Budget:
USDA: United States Department of Agriculture:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
July 20, 2011:
The Honorable Debbie Stabenow:
Chair:
The Honorable Pat Roberts:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Herb Kohl:
Chairman:
The Honorable Roy Blunt:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service
Agency (FSA) is responsible for administering billions of dollars
annually in program benefits to farmers and ranchers.[Footnote 1]
Since 2004, FSA has been planning a program called Modernize and
Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) to modernize the
information technology (IT) systems that process these benefits. Goals
include replacing aging computer hardware and revamping complex and
duplicative farm program benefits processing by 2014. The estimated
life cycle costs for the program are expected to approach half a
billion dollars.
This report responds to your request that we review the progress of
FSA's modernization program. Specifically, you asked us to determine
(1) the scope and status of MIDAS, (2) whether MIDAS has appropriate
program management, and (3) whether MIDAS has appropriate executive
oversight and governance.
To describe the program's scope and status, we reviewed program
documents and interviewed agency officials to identify the farm
programs, interfaces, and systems; the milestones and products planned
and delivered; and the costs budgeted and expended. To assess whether
there is appropriate program management, we compared program plans and
artifacts with leading practices for program planning and monitoring,
requirements management, contract management, and risk management to
determine the extent to which practices were planned and executed. To
assess whether there is appropriate executive oversight and
governance, we compared USDA and FSA policies, plans, and artifacts
for MIDAS oversight and governance with our guidance and that of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to determine whether this
guidance has been applied.
We conducted this performance audit from October 2010 to July 2011 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. See appendix I
for a complete description of our objectives, scope, and methodology.
Background:
USDA manages and administers benefits programs that support farm and
ranch production, natural resources and environmental conservation,
and rural development. FSA is one of three USDA service center
agencies that manages and administers these benefits to farmers and
ranchers.[Footnote 2] FSA has three core program areas: farm programs,
farm loan programs, and commodity operations.
The largest of the program areas--farm programs--pays billions of
dollars annually to approximately 2 million farmers and ranchers. As
of November 2008, FSA reported that these five farm programs accounted
for 95 percent of FSA's budget and transactions.
* Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payments Program: offsets losses for a
drop in the market price for a specific crop.
* Marketing Assistance Loan Program: provides interim financing to
meet cash flow needs when market prices for commodities are at harvest
time lows.
* Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program: provides aid for
uninsured crops that are destroyed through natural disasters.
* Crop Disaster Program:[Footnote 3] provides benefits for crop
production or quality losses during the crop year.
* Conservation Reserve Program: provides incentive payments and cost
sharing for projects to reduce erosion, protect streams and rivers,
enhance wildlife habitats, and improve air quality.
FSA administers these programs primarily at its approximately 2,300
local offices using a variety of computing environments and software
applications to process farm program data, including:
* a central "Web farm," consisting of an array of interconnected
computer servers that exchange data in support of data storage and Web-
based applications;[Footnote 4]
* a central IBM mainframe that hosts non-Web applications and data;
and:
* a distributed network of IBM Application System 400 computers and a
common computing environment[Footnote 5] of personal and server
computers at each local office.
We, FSA, and others have reported challenges with the current systems
used to deliver benefits.[Footnote 6] Specifically, FSA's information
systems:
* date to the 1980s and are obsolete and difficult to maintain. The
maintenance contract on a key component--the Application System 400
computer--expires in 2013, and FSA anticipates that the contract will
be difficult to renew.
* provide farmers and ranchers with limited access to farm programs
through the Internet, so they must primarily visit a local office to
conduct transactions.
* are not interoperable. FSA personnel at the local offices must
switch between applications hosted on each system. In addition, the
Application System 400 computers can only store customer information
at a local office. Therefore, customers cannot use different offices
to complete their transactions.
* do not satisfy federal directives for internal controls and security.
* are difficult to modify or change, hampering FSA's ability to
promptly implement new benefits programs.[Footnote 7]
Goals and History of MIDAS:
In early 2004, FSA began planning the MIDAS program to streamline and
automate farm program processes and to replace obsolete hardware and
software. FSA identified these goals for the program:
* Replace aging hardware: Replace the Application System 400 computers
with a hosting infrastructure to meet business needs, internal
controls, and security requirements.
* Reengineer business processes: Streamline outmoded work processes by
employing common functions across farm programs. For example,
determining benefits eligibility might be redesigned (using business
process reengineering) as a structured series of work steps that would
remain consistent regardless of the benefits requested.
* Improve data management: Make data more readily available to FSA
personnel and farmers and ranchers--including self-service
capabilities--and increase data accuracy and security.
* Improve interoperability with other USDA and FSA systems: Integrate
with other USDA and FSA modernization initiatives, including the
Financial Management Modernization Initiative for core financial
services that meet federal accounting and systems standards, the
Geospatial Information Systems to obtain farm imagery and mapping
information, and the Enterprise Data Warehouse to provide enterprise
reporting.
FSA drafted initial requirements for MIDAS in January 2004. It halted
requirements development when program officials decided that the
proposed customized solution would not meet future business needs. FSA
subsequently changed its approach in the summer of 2006 from
customized software to commercial off-the-shelf enterprise resource
planning[Footnote 8] software.
In February 2008, FSA analyzed how its farm program functions would
map to functions available in an off-the-shelf enterprise resource
planning software suite from vendor SAP, which was selected for two
other USDA modernization initiatives--the Financial Management
Modernization Initiative and the Web Based Supply Chain Management
program. This analysis concluded that MIDAS processes generally mapped
to the SAP software. Based on that analysis and a software
alternatives analysis, FSA decided to proceed with SAP Enterprise
Resource Planning as the solution for MIDAS. FSA also decided to
accelerate the time frame for implementing the solution from the 10
years originally planned to 2 years for its 2008 business case. To
accomplish this, FSA would compress the requirements analysis phase
from 4 years to 5 months, and reduce the analysis and design phase
from 3½ years to 9 months.
In preparation for issuing a request for quotation and selecting a
contractor to define, design, and implement MIDAS with the SAP
software suite, FSA staff visited local offices to document farm
program business processes and to determine requirements for the new
system. The request for quotation for the MIDAS system integrator
contract was released in July 2009; a contract based on this request
was awarded to SRA International in December 2009. The contract start
was delayed due to a bid protest, which was resolved in February 2010,
and SRA International began work in May 2010. By this point, FSA had
also awarded six other contracts for services to support additional
aspects of this initiative, including software licenses, project
management support, and technical support.
FSA hired a MIDAS executive program manager in September 2007 and
drafted a staffing plan in April 2009 that called for 35 to 40 full-
time government employees to oversee the program and its supporting
contracts. The program office reports to the FSA Chief Information
Officer (CIO) and has three functional areas: requirements and project
management, IT solutions, and change management and communications.
The USDA CIO is responsible for MIDAS investment guidance and
direction.
Figure 1 depicts a timeline of key milestones for MIDAS from its
inception through the initiation of work by the system integrator.
Figure 1: MIDAS Timeline:
[Refer to PDF for image: timeline]
2004:
MIDAS initiative started.
2004-2005:
Initial requirements development.
2006:
Work stopped.
2006:
Solution changed to enterprise resource planning.
2008:
Enterprise resource planning functional analysis reported.
2008:
Business process analysis documented.
2009:
MIDAS system integrator request for quotation released.
2009:
System integrator contract awarded and bid protest filed.
2010:
Bid protest resolved.
2010:
System integrator began work.
Source: GAO analysis of agency data.
[End of figure]
In view of congressional concern about the complexity, scale, and
challenges of FSA's IT modernization, USDA has been required to report
to the committees on Agriculture and Appropriations of the Senate and
House of Representatives on key aspects of MIDAS management, including
cost, schedule and milestones, oversight and investment management,
and integration with other modernization initiatives.[Footnote 9] In
response, USDA has submitted a series of reports to Congress[Footnote
10] that reflect the department's approach toward the modernization
program and its progress.
Prior GAO Review Found That Program Cost and Schedule Estimates Were
Inadequate:
In May 2008, at the request of the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations, we reported[Footnote 11] that MIDAS was in the
planning phase and that FSA had begun gathering information and
analyzing products to integrate its existing systems.[Footnote 12] We
determined that the agency had not adequately assessed the program's
cost estimate, in that the estimate had been based on an unrelated
USDA IT investment. Moreover, the agency had not adequately assessed
its schedule estimate because business requirements had not been
considered when FSA reduced the implementation time frame from 10
years to 2 years. As a result, we said that it was uncertain whether
the department could deliver the program within the cost and schedule
time frames it had proposed and recommended that FSA establish
effective and reliable cost estimates using industry leading practices
and establish a realistic and reliable implementation schedule that
was based on complete business requirements. The department generally
agreed with our recommendations.
Leading Practices for IT Modernization Management:
Effective planning and management practices are essential for the
success of large, complex IT modernization efforts. Our reviews
[Footnote 13] of these practices and experience with federal agencies
have shown that such practices can significantly increase the
likelihood of delivering promised system capabilities on time and
within budget. Organizations such as the Software Engineering
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University have issued guidance[Footnote
14] on effective planning and management practices for developing and
acquiring software-based systems. These practices include:
* Project planning and monitoring: Project planning establishes a
framework for managing the project by defining project activities and
their estimated cost and schedule, among other things. Project
monitoring provides an understanding of the project's progress, so
that appropriate corrective actions can be taken if performance
deviates from plans. Effective planning and monitoring employ a range
of resources and tools that promote coordination of and insight into
the project's activities, such as an integrated project schedule,
which identifies a project's dependencies with other projects to
facilitate coordination of their tasks and resources.
* Requirements management: Requirements establish what the system is
to do, how well it is to do it, and how it is to interact with other
systems. Effective management of requirements involves assigning
responsibility for them, tracking them, and controlling requirements
changes over the course of the project. It also ensures that
requirements are validated against user needs and that each
requirement traces back to the business need and forward to its design
and testing.
* Contract management: Effective contract management ensures that
contractor activities are performed in accordance with contractual
requirements and that the acquiring organization has sufficient
visibility into the contractor's performance to identify and respond
to performance shortfalls. It also ensures that the roles of multiple
contractors are clearly defined in a contract management plan, thus
avoiding confusion or duplication of effort in managing the tasks.
* Risk management: Risk management is a process for anticipating
problems and taking appropriate steps to mitigate risks and minimize
their impact on project commitments. It involves identifying and
cataloging the risks, categorizing them based on their estimated
impact, prioritizing them, developing risk mitigation strategies, and
tracking progress in executing the strategies.
For projects such as MIDAS, which involve complex and concurrent
activities, it is important that proven practices be implemented early
in the life of the project so that potential problems can be
identified and addressed before they can significantly impact program
commitments.
Federal guidance,[Footnote 15] along with our framework for managing
IT investments and our prior reviews of federal investments[Footnote
16] also point to the importance of having executive-level oversight
and governance for the success of large IT investments. Executive
attention helps to ensure that such projects follow sound business
practices for planning, acquiring, and operating the IT system; meet
cost, schedule, and performance goals; and detect and address risks
and problems that could impede progress toward those goals. When
multiple oversight boards govern an investment, it is critical to
define the roles and coordination among them to avoid duplication of
effort and to increase the effectiveness of the oversight. To help
institutionalize such oversight, OMB requires capital planning and
investment control processes, including a department-level board with
the authority to commit resources and make decisions for IT
investments. Such boards are to review the investments at key decision
points against standard evaluation factors. OMB also requires annual
and monthly reporting for such investments.[Footnote 17] Due to its
concerns that investment review boards have not always been effective,
OMB recently identified additional actions agencies should take to
strengthen the boards, including improving the timeliness and accuracy
of program data available to them.[Footnote 18]
MIDAS Is Currently Being Defined; Cost and Schedule Estimates Are
Uncertain:
FSA plans to modernize all the systems that support its 37 farm
programs (listed in appendix II) with the MIDAS program. The
implementation cost estimate is approximately $305 million, with a
life cycle cost of approximately $473 million. However, the
implementation cost is uncertain because it has not been updated since
2007 and does not include key cost elements. MIDAS is in its second of
four phases--proof of concept and system design. However, the schedule
for the current program phase, which was to be completed in October
2011, is uncertain, and a key milestone, requirements review, is
delayed. As a result, the completion date for the second phase, and
its impact on subsequent phases, is unknown. FSA officials plan to
revisit the cost and schedule estimates after completing requirements
definition.
Program Scope Is Generally Defined, but Is Not Reflected in Outdated
Cost Estimate:
As currently defined, the scope of MIDAS includes modernization of
FSA's systems for all of its 37 farm programs (listed in appendix II).
The modernization effort is to address all of the goals of MIDAS:
replace aging hardware; reengineer business processes across all the
farm programs; improve data access, accuracy, and security; and
provide interoperability with the financial management, geospatial,
and enterprise data initiatives. Figure 2 conceptually depicts the
proposed systems, components, and interconnections, in contrast with
those currently used to deliver farm program benefits.
Figure 2: Current and Proposed MIDAS Environments:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustration]
Current:
Farmer/rancher on home computer:
Internet connection to:
FSA Processing Centers (limited access).
USDA Network:
* One of 2,300 FSA local offices:
- Geospatial Information System;
- Common Computing Environment;
- IBM Application System 400 computer;
* FSA Processing Centers:
- Web farm;
- IBM mainframe.
Proposed:
Farmer/rancher on home computer:
Internet connection to:
FSA Processing Centers:
External portal;
Internal portal:
* MIDAS (SAP);
* Web farm;
- Financial Management Modernization Initiative (SAP);
- Geospatial Information System;
- Enterprise Data Warehouse.
USDA Network:
One of 2,300 FSA local offices:
* Common Computing Environment;
FSA Processing Centers:
External portal;
Internal portal:
* MIDAS (SAP);
* Web farm;
- Financial Management Modernization Initiative (SAP);
- Geospatial Information System;
- Enterprise Data Warehouse.
Source: GAO analysis of USDA data.
[End of figure]
The program's estimated life cycle cost is approximately $473 million,
with approximately $305 million for program planning, requirements
definition, system design and development, deployment, and program
support through 2014. FSA considers the implementation cost estimate--
which was developed in 2007 and is the most current available--to be
preliminary, with a large degree of uncertainty.[Footnote 19]
FSA officials reported that approximately $66 million has been
obligated for the program from fiscal year 2009 to June 2011,[Footnote
20] $61 million of which has been obligated for seven contracts that
supported MIDAS during our review.[Footnote 21] Approximately $36
million has been obligated for the system integrator contract, which
is to provide planning, development, design, and deployment.
Approximately $25 million has been obligated for the remaining six
contracts, which are to provide project management support,
development, independent verification and validation, software
licenses, and hosting infrastructure. Table 1 describes these
contracts.
Table 1: MIDAS Supporting Contracts:
Program management:
Contract: Project management support[A];
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $3.5 million;
Scope: Supports MIDAS program office with project control, acquisition
development, risk management, budget and finance, and overall project
management.
Contract: Enterprise project management office;
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $6.3 million;
Scope: Supports enterprise governance including planning, control
reporting and communication, and some project-level process definition
and reporting.
Development:
Contract: Lean Six Sigma business process mapping[A];
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $3.5 million;
Scope: Supports the MIDAS office to improve business processes and
develop and maintain MIDAS requirements.
Independent verification and validation:
Contract: Independent verification and validation;
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $4.9 million;
Scope: Independent oversight and review of the system integrator's
deliverables and methodology.
Software and infrastructure:
Contract: SAP software licenses/contracts;
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $3.5 million;
Scope: Software licenses to support the development and operation of
MIDAS.
Contract: Hosting services;
Obligations FY09 to June 2011: $3.3 million;
Scope: Infrastructure needed to run the MIDAS system.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[A] In July 2011, an FSA official said that these had expired.
[End of table]
FSA officials stated that they have not revised the 2007 cost estimate
because the scope of MIDAS has not changed. However, FSA's cost
estimate for MIDAS does not reflect costs resulting from program
changes identified since 2007, such as:
* selection of SAP as the enterprise resource planning software and
mechanism for enterprise reporting;
* workshops held with stakeholders in 2010 to identify business
processes; and:
* deployment of the financial management initiative and planned
integration with the geospatial and enterprise data initiatives.
In addition, estimated costs have not been included for modernizing
program processes that cannot be supported with the SAP software, or
for implementing any new farm program requirements that may be enacted
in the 2012 farm bill.
In April 2011, FSA officials stated that they would begin revising the
program's cost estimate in September 2011 and would incorporate new
information gained from requirements development.[Footnote 22]
However, they could not provide a date for completing the revised
estimate because this information was still being identified.
Design Milestones Have Slipped; Program Schedule Is Uncertain:
MIDAS is to be executed in four phases with incremental deployment of
system capabilities, as recommended by OMB.[Footnote 23] FSA calls
these four phases planning, proof of concept and system design,
initial operating capability, and full operating capability. These
phases were to run from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, as
shown in figure 3.[Footnote 24] FSA completed the program planning
phase in October 2010.
Figure 3: Implementation Schedule for MIDAS:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustration]
Planning (completed):
Last two quarters of FY 2010.
Proof of concept and system design: (1 farm program demo)
First quarter FY 2011 through: Completion date not provided.
Initial operating capability: (1 farm program operational);
Fourth quarter FY 2011 through first quarter FY 2013.
Full operating capability: (36 farm programs operational):
Fourth quarter FY 2012 through second quarter FY 2014.
Source: GAO analysis of agency data.
[End of figure]
In April 2011, FSA officials reported that the second phase was under
way and that the proof of concept demonstration was on schedule, but
that key milestones for system design would not be completed as
scheduled. FSA officials could not provide new completion dates for
the system design milestones or the second phase. They stated that an
update to the schedule, due in September 2011, would also not be
completed as planned because information needed to revise the schedule
is being identified as the second phase progresses. This uncertainty
has implications for the remaining phases, as discussed in the
following sections.
Project planning. This phase began in May 2010 and was completed in
October 2010--1 month later than planned due to FSA's requirement that
the system integrator address deficiencies in its planning
deliverables. During this phase, the system integrator developed--and
FSA approved--planning documents that define and detail the management
of processes, products, activities, and milestones for the succeeding
phases of MIDAS, including a project plan, concept of operations, SAP
implementation road map, technical development approach,
organizational change management strategy, and data management plan.
FSA also established a federal program office for MIDAS and filled
most program office positions, including key management positions for
the program director and deputy directors for requirements and project
management, IT solutions, and change management/communications.
Proof of concept and system design. This phase, begun in November
2010, was scheduled to be completed in October 2011. The proof of
concept is to demonstrate several functions of one farm program--the
Marketing Assistance Loan farm program--with an interface to
geospatial systems. This demonstration is to use SAP software in a
stand-alone (i.e., not production) environment and is to validate
certain SAP software functions. An FSA official stated that the first
proof of concept demonstration was conducted in May 2011 and that
field demonstrations are to be conducted through August 2011.
The system design portion of this phase entails three efforts--
defining requirements, allocating requirements to systems, and
designing system functions. To define requirements, FSA is analyzing
the 37 farm programs to identify the required business processes,
including the steps, tasks, and data currently used for these
programs. These processes are also being re-engineered or optimized by
aligning them with nine common processes where possible.[Footnote 25]
Tasks that do not align with common processes will be identified as
program-specific processes. Both common and program-specific business
processes are to be captured and baselined as requirements. Technical
requirements are to be defined in conjunction with business
requirements and will specify computer processing power, data storage,
network bandwidth, and computer upgrades to support the processing of
MIDAS functions, among other needs. They are also to address
modernization goals, including consolidation of farm program
processing to two existing computing centers, eliminating the obsolete
computers in the local offices; allowing internal and external access
to MIDAS through Web portals; and integrating MIDAS with the other
USDA and FSA modernization initiatives.
Following requirements definition, FSA plans to conduct an allocation
analysis to determine which business requirements can be supported by
the SAP software. Requirements that cannot be implemented using the
SAP software are to be allocated to the Web farm for implementation. A
high-level design of the MIDAS solution, to include both SAP and Web
farm (non-SAP) system functions, will be based on this requirements
allocation.
In April 2011, FSA officials stated that two key system design
milestones--the system requirements review and the high-level design
review--would not be held as scheduled. According to the December 2010
program schedule, milestones for these events were originally
scheduled for May 2011 and July 2011, respectively. However, FSA
officials do not plan to conduct the system requirements review until
December 2011, and a new date for the high-level design review has not
yet been set because additional information and analysis are needed to
plan this milestone. As a result, the completion date for the second
phase is uncertain.
Initial operating capability. This phase was to be conducted from July
2011 to December 2012--a schedule that has not yet been updated to
reflect delays in the second phase. The initial activities of this
phase are to run concurrently with the proof of concept and system
design phase. Detailed requirements are to be defined for the
Marketing Assistance Loan farm program, including required interfaces,
computers, data storage, and networks. Plans call for augmenting the
high-level system design to reflect these requirements, implementing
the design for modernized Marketing Assistance Loan operations, and
deploying it to all local offices.
Full operating capability. This phase, scheduled from September 2012
to March 2014, is to include detailed requirements definition, design,
and deployment for the 36 remaining farm programs and for farmer and
rancher access to farm program services from their own computers. The
schedule for this phase has also not been updated to reflect delays in
the proof of concept and system design phase.
MIDAS Plans Reflect Many Leading Management Practices, but Could Be
Strengthened:
Delivering large IT modernization programs such as MIDAS on time and
within budget presents challenges and risks. Program goals are more
likely to be achieved when managers employ leading practices for
managing program planning and monitoring, requirements, contracts, and
risks. Prior to the proof of concept and system design phase, MIDAS
plans were in place and managers were assigned for these practices.
These plans largely incorporated certain leading practices, although
each management area had at least one practice that was not fully
satisfied.
Program Planning and Monitoring Are Partially Defined; Implementation
Is Incomplete:
The success of complex IT modernization initiatives such as MIDAS,
which involve transforming business processes and integrating with
other systems, requires effective program planning and monitoring to
ensure that the intended results are achieved. The Software
Engineering Institute, our work,[Footnote 26] and recent OMB guidance
[Footnote 27] have identified leading practices that support effective
planning and monitoring to include:
* assigning a full-time project manager and committed business sponsor
to guide the program;
* planning organizational change and communications management to
obtain user acceptance of new ways of doing business;[Footnote 28]
* establishing integrated project teams with external stakeholders and
subject matter experts to facilitate coordination of project
activities;
* developing integrated project schedules to identify external
dependencies among tasks and resources;
* defining earned value management that is compliant with relevant
guidelines[Footnote 29] to manage contractor and project office
development work; and:
* tracking and reporting the status of key program milestones--such as
through OMB's IT investment business case (known as the exhibit 300)
and program status reports on OMB's IT investment Web site (known as
the IT Dashboard).[Footnote 30]
Of these six practices, FSA has satisfied three, partially satisfied
two, and not satisfied one (see table 2). Specifically, FSA has
assigned a program manager and a business sponsor, has planned and
initiated organizational change and communications management, and
planned for earned value management. However, it has not yet
established an integrated project team that formally commits the
support of IT programs related to the project, developed an integrated
project schedule that specifies related IT program dependencies, or
reported clearly on key MIDAS milestones to accurately convey program
progress.
Table 2: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Planning and
Monitoring Practices:
Leading practice: Assign a program manager and business sponsor;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: As of October 2010, a full-time director and a
business sponsor had been assigned. These roles are defined in the
project management plan and charter. The business sponsor for MIDAS is
the FSA Administrator.
Leading practice: Plan organizational change and communications
management;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The organizational change and communications
plans call for stakeholder engagement, communications, organizational
readiness, and training to facilitate program acceptance and to
specify activities for these four areas. Plans also define the roles
of the organization change and communications managers and call for
monitoring and managing activities from design through deployment. FSA
has assigned a manager for organizational change and communications
and reported that it had established an enterprisewide modernization
communications team; completed the initial phase of stakeholder
analysis for an enterprisewide communications plan; conducted FSA
staff training in development techniques; and had developed a Web
site, newsletter, and brochure about the program, among other things.
Leading practice: Establish an integrated project team;
Partially satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The system integrator's project management plan
calls for establishing an integrated project team comprised of FSA and
contractor staff from MIDAS and other FSA modernization initiatives to
facilitate external integration, interfacing, and dependencies with
other projects, such as the financial management and geospatial
initiatives. Even though the FSA CIO stated that he has been able to
obtain staff to support MIDAS as needed, a chartered project team
would better ensure that needed staff will continue to be available in
the future. When we discussed this with FSA officials, they agreed
that a chartered team would be helpful. As of April 2011, however, FSA
had not chartered such a team.
Leading practice: Establish an integrated project schedule to identify
external dependencies;
Not satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: Plans do not call for an integrated schedule
that identifies external dependencies with the financial management,
geospatial, and enterprise data initiatives, nor have these
dependencies been incorporated into the program's schedules. Instead,
FSA's documented schedule only includes tasks and dependencies within
the program office. The inventory of program risks from November 2010
noted the need for integrated scheduling with other modernization
initiatives and, at that time, FSA's CIO said that such a schedule was
being developed. In March 2011, an FSA official provided a separate
high-level schedule that identified dependent milestones between MIDAS
and these initiatives, but it did not include the tasks that
contributed to the dependencies or the associated resource commitments
or contention. An FSA briefing in April 2011 noted that weak
integration planning could result in inefficient use of funding,
inability to properly scope the work, and unmet stakeholder
expectations.
Leading practice: Define earned value management;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: Plans require the program to comply with
relevant guidance for earned value management. The project management
plan describes the earned value standards to be followed and requires
establishing a program baseline;
updating task performance, cost, and schedule status monthly;
and comparing these monthly status updates to the approved baseline.
Plans also require assigned staff to review all earned value
management reports from contractors. Program office positions
responsible for reviewing earned value management reports were
staffed. (Contractor compliance requirements for earned value
management are also discussed in the section on contract management
practices).
Leading practice: Track and report the status of key milestones;
Partially satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: Plans call for identifying, evaluating, and
tracking program milestones, and USDA requires that programs report
progress against milestones to the department on a monthly basis.
MIDAS reported its progress against program milestones on the IT
Dashboard in February 2011 and in its 2012 business case. However, the
system blueprint milestone, reported as planned for completion in
September 2011, is only one of several system blueprint milestones,
and the others are not shown on the program schedule. Unless all the
blueprinting milestones are depicted on the schedule and progress is
presented for each increment, the current milestone will incorrectly
convey that all system blueprinting is to be completed in 2011, rather
than in 2014, as planned. FSA officials acknowledged that this
blueprinting milestone could be misleading.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[End of table]
Without a committed integrated project team and an integrated project
schedule that identifies MIDAS dependencies on initiatives outside the
program office, the program may not obtain necessary and timely staff
participation, expertise, and resources, and may not be able to
adequately monitor integration with these initiatives.
Without clear milestone reporting, Congress, OMB, department and
agency management, and other interested parties will have difficulty
tracking the delivery of MIDAS capabilities.
Requirements Management Is Defined, but User Concerns Need to Be Fully
Validated:
Defining and implementing disciplined processes for developing and
managing the requirements for a new system can help improve the
likelihood that the system will meet user needs and that it will
perform or function as intended. Leading practices for requirements
development and management[Footnote 31] include, among other things,
* establishing a policy for developing and managing requirements;
* assigning and defining the role and responsibilities for a
requirements manager;
* eliciting and validating user needs;
* defining a disciplined change control process; and:
* ensuring that system requirements are traceable back to business
requirements and forward to detailed requirements, design, and test
cases.
FSA fully satisfied four of these practices, and partially satisfied
one (see table 3). MIDAS requirements and change management plans
address all of these leading practices. However, one practice--the
validation of user needs--was not fully satisfied due to incomplete
validation of user needs (called "pain points") that had been
identified prior to the award of the system integrator contract.
Table 3: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Requirements
Management Practices:
Leading practice: Establish a requirements development and management
policy;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The requirements management plan calls for
requirements development and management processes based on the SAP
methodology for gathering, decomposing, and documenting requirements
(called blueprinting); supporting systems and infrastructure (called
landscaping); and integrating with FSA's enterprise architecture. It
also specifies the tools that will support these processes during the
MIDAS life cycle.
Leading practice: Assign and define a requirements manager position;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The project management plan defines the role
and responsibilities of the requirements manager. This position had
been staffed as of October 2010.
Leading practice: Elicit and validate user needs;
Partially satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The requirements management strategy calls for
eliciting desired or required system capabilities from users,
validating them, translating them into system requirements, and
obtaining approval before deployment. It specifically calls for
eliciting system capabilities via workshops with stakeholders from all
the farm programs. These capabilities are to be translated or
decomposed into the baseline system-level requirements and approved by
stakeholders at the system requirements review, validated against the
initial design at the preliminary design review, and approved for
implementation at a system design review. Elicitation of system
capabilities for all FSA farm programs was conducted with stakeholders
via workshops conducted with the systems integrator in late 2010. In
addition to this elicitation effort, FSA previously obtained user
requirements from field staff--referred to as "pain points"--prior to
the systems integrator contract award.[A] Agency officials initially
told us in December 2010 that they did not plan to validate the pain
points against the requirements being developed through blueprinting,
but in April 2011, they reported that the pain points were being
tracked to MIDAS requirements. However, the mapping they provided in
early May 2011 was incomplete, in that only 57 percent of the original
591 pain points were represented.
Leading practice: Define a disciplined change control process;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The requirements management and change
management plans call for several review levels for change requests,
including the system integrator's Engineering Review Board and Change
Control Board, and the MIDAS Change Control Board, which is the final
authority in approving change requests. The reviewing parties for a
change depend on the impact of the change. Changes are to be logged
and tracked in an SAP tool called Solution Manager. Once changes have
been validated in the development environment, Solution Manager is to
be used to transport the changes to the next environment in the life
cycle, such as test or quality assurance.
Leading practice: Ensure that requirements trace forward and backward
among development products;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The requirements management plan calls for
bidirectional traceability among requirements products, both backward
to business requirements and forward to detailed system requirements
and test cases. The repository for this traceability, called a
requirements traceability matrix, is a required deliverable of the
system integrator contract in conjunction with the system requirements
review milestone.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[A] USDA describes a "pain point" as an issue or weakness that hinders
the progress of a process--specifically for a farm benefit program.
Examples of these pain points include eligibility determinations that
are not consistent and calculations on farm and crop acreage that are
cumbersome because they require separate transactions to compute.
[End of table]
Unless all the concerns previously expressed by field staff as "pain
points" are systematically validated with respect to MIDAS
requirements and appropriately resolved by the new system or some
other means, MIDAS may not meet user expectations and its acceptance
by field staff may be jeopardized.
Contract Management Is Defined, but Tasks Could Be Better Delineated
among Contractors:
Effective project management includes clear definition of authority,
duties, and responsibilities among contractors, and between
contractors and program management. According to the Software
Engineering Institute and our prior work,[Footnote 32] effective
processes to manage and oversee contracts that support IT projects
include:
* establishing and maintaining a plan for managing and overseeing the
contracts;
* assigning responsibility and authority for performing contract
management and oversight;
* identifying the contract work to be performed and the associated
acceptance criteria;
* conducting reviews with contractors to ensure cost and schedule
commitments are being met and risks are being managed; and:
* establishing processes for verifying and accepting contract
deliverables.
FSA fully satisfied four of these practices and partially satisfied
one (see table 4). The system integrator contract and supporting
documents indicate that FSA has planned to use these practices and has
applied them in managing this contractor. In addition, the project
management plan describes the management approach for all the
contracts that support MIDAS, specifies responsibility for overseeing
the contracts, and defines the process for reviewing contractor
performance. The plan also requires that contractor deliverables and
acceptance criteria be specified in the contracts. However, the plan
does not clarify contractor roles for tasks supported by more than one
contractor, and does not require that those roles be delineated in
other program or contractor documents. Table 4 presents a detailed
assessment of how FSA has addressed leading contract management
practices.
Table 4: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Contract Management
Practices:
Leading practice: Establish and maintain a contract management plan;
Partially satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The project management plan describes plans for
managing contracts. It describes the seven contracts and the contract
management processes, including earned value management compliance and
system integrator deliverable requirements and reviews. The plan
references contract-specific documents for details on contract
management processes. However, the plan, the project schedule, a
program report, and the program's inventory of risks indicate
instances where two contractors support the same task, with no
clarification of their unique roles. Specifically, both the enterprise
program management office and project management support contractors
support project-level oversight, and both the system integrator and
business process management contractors are to develop requirements.
FSA officials acknowledged the instances of poorly described and
duplicative tasks, and stated that the duplicative project management
and business process support would expire in 2011[A].
Leading practice: Assign contract management responsibility and
authority;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: FSA contract managers for each contract and for
overall contract management are defined in the project management
plan. All contract manager positions had been filled as of October
2010.
Leading practice: Identify the contract work and acceptance criteria;
Satisfied: [B];
FSA plans and actions: The project management plan references standard
operating procedures for review of all of the contract deliverables
and describes additional reviews for system integrator work. The
system integrator contract identifies the contract work. FSA officials
stated that content and acceptance criteria for contract deliverables
are further defined in deliverable descriptions. One example of a
deliverable description we reviewed includes acceptance criteria, such
as consistency with SAP best practices and federal records management
laws and regulations, for the system integrator's deliverable
"Strategy Plan to Decompose the Requirements Document.".
Leading practice: Conduct cost, schedule, and risk reviews with
contractors;
Satisfied: [C];
FSA plans and actions: The project management plan requires that
contractors comply with relevant earned value management guidance to
support the monthly review of contract costs and schedule. Reviews are
to be performed by the contracting officer's technical representative
and at monthly program management reviews. The project management plan
also requires that contractors comply with the risk management plan,
which requires that contractors report risks for federal manager
review, and it describes this reporting process. The system integrator
contract requires compliance with relevant earned value management
requirements. Earned value and risk are to be reported monthly.
Leading practice: Establish processes for verifying and accepting
deliverables;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: Project management plans define processes for
verifying and accepting system integrator contract deliverables at a
performance gate review and by an independent contractor. The
September 2010 gate review of system integrator planning deliverables
was documented. The independent review of the system integrator's
"Strategy Plan to Decompose the Requirements Document," based on its
deliverable description, was also documented.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[A] In July 2011, an FSA official confirmed this expiration.
[B] Our validation was limited to the system integrator contract and
specific deliverables.
[C] We did not evaluate compliance with the earned value management
guidance.
[End of table]
Unless program plans, schedules, and reports clearly delineate the
work products and activities of individual contractors, program staff,
contractors, and stakeholders may be confused about contractor
responsibilities, which may negatively impact program deliverables or
make it difficult to hold contractors accountable. By eliminating
contracts with the potential for duplicate or confusing efforts, FSA
has resolved the ambiguous roles contained in its plans and can now
clearly present the unique roles of its contractors in updates to its
program plans and other artifacts.
Risk Management Is Defined and an Inventory Established, but Risks Are
Not Regularly Tracked:
Risk management is critical in complex IT modernization programs such
as MIDAS to detect and address risks before they adversely impact
project objectives. Leading practices and our prior work[Footnote 33]
recommend:
* establishing and documenting risk management processes in a risk
management plan from the program's inception;
* assigning a risk manager with the authority to oversee the plan and
its execution;
* defining a risk inventory, and documenting risks in it, along with
decisions about their priority, probability of occurrence, and impact;
and:
* regularly tracking the status of risks and mitigation efforts and
providing this input to project managers.
FSA satisfied three of these practices and did not satisfy a fourth
(see table 5). Specifically, it has defined its risk management
processes in a risk management plan, designated a risk manager, and
established a risk inventory. However, it has not maintained the risk
inventory to track and report the current status of risks and
mitigation efforts to inform MIDAS managers.
Table 5: FSA Plans and Actions to Address Leading Risk Management
Practices:
Leading practice: Establish and document risk management processes in
a plan;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The risk management plan defines processes for
managing risk, including capturing risks in an inventory called a risk
register, prioritizing them, determining their probability and impact,
defining a mitigation approach, and reporting the status of the risks
in the register.
Leading practice: Assign a risk manager;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The risk management plan defines the role of
the risk manager. This position had been staffed as of October
2010.[A].
Leading practice: Define a risk inventory and document risks;
Satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The risk register defined in the risk
management plan includes risk descriptions, priority (rating),
probability of occurrence, impact, mitigation approach (response), and
status. The program's risk register of November 2010 was populated
with risks and this associated information.[B] The register included
key risks and concerns identified in MIDAS plans, oversight reviews,
and in this report. For example, plans and oversight reviews cite
risks with the integration of other USDA systems, the complexity of
modernizing farm programs and converting existing data, and gaps in
meeting farm program requirements using the commercial SAP solution,
which were also in the risk register. In addition, the register
includes risks associated with management practices reviewed in this
report, such as cost and schedule estimates and user requirements
validation.
Leading practice: Regularly track the status of risks;
Not satisfied;
FSA plans and actions: The risk management plan calls for risk status
to be updated for review at biweekly meetings. The risk register of
January 2011, including the status of risks and risk mitigation, was
not updated from the November 2010 version. In the risk register FSA
provided in early May 2011, the risk identification scheme had changed
and risk identifiers did not correspond to the same risks in the
previous registers. As a result, we could not determine the status and
disposition of the November risks as of the end of our review. For
instance, risk #6 in the November register is "SAP technology hasn't
been deployed publicly," while in the May register, risk #6 reads
"MIDAS solution will not be able to accommodate the farm bill."
Moreover, when risks were clearly similar in both registers, the
status of actions to address the November mitigation strategy was not
clearly presented in the May register. Although FSA was not tracking
risks, the May risk register introduced new risks, some of which did
not have responses or resolution plans documented. FSA officials
stated that they intend to mature their risk management process to
regularly update and track risks and to discuss them in weekly MIDAS
status meetings.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[A] According to the MIDAS risk management plan, the risk manager is
also the Deputy Director for Requirements and Program Management.
[B] We did not assess whether FSA assigned the risk indicators
according to the criteria in the risk management plan.
[End of table]
Identifying risks according to the MIDAS risk management plan has
provided FSA managers with an initial understanding of the risks faced
by the program. However, until FSA ensures that its risks have been
consistently identified throughout the course of the program and
regularly updates the status of its risks, it cannot ensure that it is
effectively managing the full set of risks it faces or that progress
is being made in mitigating the risks throughout the life cycle of
MIDAS.
MIDAS Governance Is Not Clearly Defined and Does Not Follow Department
Investment Guidance:
Oversight and governance of IT investments help to ensure that the
investments meet cost, schedule, and performance goals. When an
investment is governed by multiple boards or bodies, the roles and
coordination among these bodies should be clearly defined, including
the processes and criteria for escalating issues. In addition, we
[Footnote 34] and OMB[Footnote 35] recommend that federal agencies
establish an executive board, typically at the department level, to
oversee major IT investments. This board should review investments
against criteria at key decision points, such as investment selection.
In addition, OMB requires departmental oversight of the business cases
for major IT investments and monthly status updates[Footnote 36] of
program cost, schedule, and performance information. Consistent with
federal guidance, USDA requires an executive board to oversee major IT
investments at key decision points and a monthly status review.
Oversight and governance of MIDAS is the responsibility of several
department and agency bodies. Department-level oversight is performed
by the Senior Management Oversight Committee; the Project Management/
Design Decision Committee, which reports to the senior committee; and
a proposed third body called the Modernization Review Board. In
addition, the Modernization Program Management Review Board operates
at the agency level. FSA has not clearly identified this board's
position in the oversight hierarchy. Table 6 summarizes the purpose
and meeting schedules for these bodies.
Table 6: MIDAS Oversight and Governance Bodies:
Body: Senior Management Oversight Committee;
Purpose: Oversee and review MIDAS modernization progress at the USDA
level. Review MIDAS at system integrator gates;
Meeting schedule: monthly;
Membership levels: USDA, FSA.
Body: Project Management/Design Decision Committee;
Purpose: Provide direction and decisions for MIDAS in areas such as
meeting timelines, ensuring proper talent and skills, design
specifications, supplementing consultants, meeting regulations, and
meeting project goals. Manage cross-agency dependencies;
Meeting schedule: monthly;
Membership levels: USDA, FSA.
Body: FSA Modernization Program Management Review Board;
Purpose: Review the major IT initiatives within the agency and resolve
key interdependencies from an IT perspective;
Meeting schedule: monthly;
Membership levels: FSA.
Body: USDA Modernization Review Board (proposed);
Purpose: Improve MIDAS governance in areas such as USDA enterprise
solution management, cross-initiative architectural and technical
integration (projects), cross-organizational architectural and
technical integration (support groups), and technical risk management;
Meeting schedule: not specified;
Membership levels: USDA.
Source: GAO analysis of FSA data.
[End of table]
However, the roles and coordination of these bodies are not clear in
the following respects:
Certain roles have been assigned to governance bodies without clear
delineation of their scope and criteria for escalating issues.
Charters and plans for the department Project Management/Design
Decision Committee and the agency Modernization Program Management
Review Board describe similar--and potentially overlapping--roles for
overseeing agency IT initiatives. Moreover, the extent of oversight by
the active bodies and criteria for escalating issues related to cost,
schedule, performance, and risk have not been defined in charters or
plans.
A key role has not been assigned. According to the MIDAS risk
register, the Project Management/Design Decision Committee and Senior
Management Oversight Committee are to coordinate enterprise resource
planning among MIDAS and other initiatives, such as financial
management. However, this coordination role has not been described in
charters or plans.[Footnote 37]
The role of the proposed board has not yet been defined. FSA officials
stated that the USDA Modernization Review Board is to improve MIDAS
governance, but its oversight responsibilities and processes to do so
have not yet been defined.
These concerns have been recognized to some extent by FSA and the
department, but remain unresolved. In October 2010, the FSA
Modernization Program Management Review Board appeared to be aware of
this lack of clarity and recommended that a directory of governance
boards be developed and their respective responsibilities, decision-
making processes, and escalation path be defined. An April 2011
Project Management/Design Decision Committee briefing noted that the
proposed Modernization Review Board would mitigate the risk of
integrating MIDAS with other systems. However, as of May 2011, these
recommended improvements had yet to be provided.
Regarding oversight of MIDAS, none of these boards reviewed MIDAS at
key decision points using criteria defined in department guidance. An
official from the department's CIO office stated that the Senior
Management Oversight Committee serves as the IT investment executive
board recommended by OMB and required by USDA, although the
committee's charter and other governance plans do not specify this
role. The committee reviewed MIDAS at the planning gate in October
2010, but did not use the department's review criteria. Instead, the
review focused on contract deliverables and did not include project
management office documents such as the MIDAS risk assessment and
project management plan, as called for by department guidance. On the
other hand, department officials reported that MIDAS has complied with
department requirements for business case and monthly status reviews.
A department official reported that USDA's CIO office has conducted
monthly reviews of MIDAS status and its business case using the
department's criteria and that the status is posted on the IT
Dashboard.[Footnote 38] Nevertheless, the dashboard reported in
January and March 2011 that improved oversight is needed for MIDAS.
The lack of clarity and definition for the roles of MIDAS oversight
and governance bodies may result in duplication or voids in program
oversight and wasted resources. Moreover, because MIDAS is not being
fully governed according to department investment guidance, the
department may not be rigorously monitoring and managing the program
and its risks, and may not have the information it needs to make
timely and appropriate decisions to ensure the success of MIDAS.
Conclusions:
After years of planning, USDA is moving forward with its farm program
modernization effort known as MIDAS, which intends to remedy long-
standing problems with the supportability, efficiency, and accuracy of
existing systems. The agency has made key decisions regarding the
scope of MIDAS, the contractors that will support system design and
development, and the incremental approach it will use to execute the
program. However, FSA's implementation cost estimate has yet to
reflect decisions and activities that have occurred since the estimate
was developed in 2007. In addition, key events for the proof of
concept and system design phase, currently under way, have been
delayed. Consequently, agency managers are revising the plans for
completing MIDAS requirements definition, system design, and the cost
and schedule for the program, but are unlikely to finalize these plans
until fiscal year 2012. Given the agency's prior difficulty with
developing reliable cost and schedule estimates, and our corresponding
prior recommendation, it is critical that FSA and USDA adopt a
rigorous and credible approach for revising estimates and complete
them in a timely manner, so that the department has a basis for
effectively managing program progress and making decisions about
needed adjustments.
The challenges USDA is facing in meeting its program commitments are
more likely to be overcome if it can adopt and execute effective
management practices. The management framework established by the
agency in a series of plans reflects many leading practices for
program planning and monitoring, requirements, contracts, and risk.
Moreover, FSA has followed through on these plans to some extent by
staffing government managers in these areas and instituting mechanisms
to promote use of the practices, such as contract provisions for
earned value management. However, MIDAS management could be further
strengthened through improved definition and execution of these and
other leading practices, specifically by chartering and operating an
integrated project team; fully documenting MIDAS dependencies on other
departmental IT initiatives in an integrated project schedule; clearly
identifying and reporting key incremental milestones to OMB;
validating all previously identified user concerns against MIDAS
requirements; clearly delineating contractor roles and
responsibilities; and consistently identifying and regularly tracking
and reporting the status of MIDAS risks. By applying its plans and
embracing other proven management practices, FSA will stand a better
chance of surfacing and resolving issues before they can derail the
program.
The agencywide impact of MIDAS and its dependence on other IT
initiatives point to the need for clearly defined and effectively
executed oversight. However, the roles and coordination among
oversight bodies are not clearly defined and USDA's well-defined
investment oversight guidance is not being fully executed. Providing
adequate and efficient oversight for MIDAS in such an environment
presents a challenge that could be avoided if USDA and FSA delineate
governance roles and responsibilities and execute them accordingly.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To increase the likelihood that the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) will be able to successfully define, develop, and
deploy the Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems
(MIDAS) program, we recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct
the chief information officers of USDA and the Farm Service Agency
(FSA) to take the following three actions:
* To ensure that the department can effectively oversee MIDAS cost,
schedule, and performance commitments, FSA should:
- develop timely cost estimates for MIDAS's remaining phases, its
overall development and deployment, and its life cycle, to incorporate
the program changes previously omitted and any others recently
identified and:
- develop complete and detailed schedules for the program's current
and remaining phases that take into account the milestone delays from
the program's second phase and a requirements baseline.
* To ensure that FSA is employing leading practices for program
planning and monitoring, requirements management, contract management,
and risk management for MIDAS, the agency should:
- charter and operate an integrated project team that commits
stakeholders to the program from other USDA information technology
(IT) initiatives;
- establish an integrated project schedule that identifies tasks,
dependencies, and resource commitments and contention between MIDAS
and other department IT initiatives;
- clearly track key milestones, and report their status in the
program's business case and on the Office of Management and Budget's
IT Dashboard;
- validate all of the 591 user pain points against the requirements
and document the results of this validation, including points that
will not be addressed by MIDAS;
- update the program's management plans to clearly delineate the roles
and responsibilities of contractors assigned to the same tasks; and:
- document the status of resolved and unresolved risks initially
identified in November 2010, identify and maintain any unresolved
risks from that period in the current risk register, and regularly
track risks and update the risk register according to the program's
risk management plan.
* To ensure the effectiveness of MIDAS oversight and the efficiency of
its governance bodies, the department and agency should collaborate to:
- delineate the roles and responsibilities of the governance bodies
and clarify coordination among them, to include criteria for
escalating issues and:
- document how the department is meeting its policy for IT investment
management for MIDAS, to include investment reviews.
Agency Comments:
In written comments on a draft of this report signed by the
Administrator, Farm Service Agency, and reprinted in appendix III,
USDA generally agreed with the content and recommendations and
described actions and time frames to address the recommendations. For
example, the department stated that it will revise MIDAS schedule and
cost estimates for this year's capital planning submission based on
fiscal year 2011 planning, requirements, and design sessions, and will
be able to develop more precise estimates at the completion of primary
blueprinting and design in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012. The
department described improvements to address our other
recommendations, including integration processes with other
initiatives; requirements validation; risk management; and department-
level governance, to be completed by the end of the second quarter of
fiscal year 2012.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the
Secretary of Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Farm Service
Agency. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the
GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-9286 or at pownerd@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are
listed in appendix IV.
Signed by:
David A. Powner:
Director, Information Technology Management Issues:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Our objectives were to determine (1) the scope and status of the
Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS)
program; (2) whether MIDAS has appropriate program management; and (3)
whether MIDAS has appropriate executive oversight and governance.
To determine the program's scope and status, we reviewed planning
documents to identify the farm programs included in MIDAS, the
required interfaces to other United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) modernization initiatives, and
the proposed technical approach to the program. We also reviewed the
fiscal year 2012 business case (called the exhibit 300), program
schedules, oversight reviews from October 2010, and a 2010 FSA report
to Congress to identify the active contracts supporting MIDAS and to
determine the program's phases, due dates, and phase completion
status. To determine whether FSA completed the planning phase as
scheduled, we identified the deviation between the planned and actual
completion dates. We also examined selected products produced during
that phase. We identified the cost estimate and its limitations using
these sources and a 2009 third-party report to Congress on FSA
modernization. We interviewed USDA and FSA officials to clarify
information in the documents we reviewed and to more fully understand
the program's progress and status.
To determine whether MIDAS has appropriate program management, we
identified leading management practices for four areas that we and
others have previously found to be important for the success of large
information technology (IT) programs--planning and monitoring,
requirements management, contract management, and risk management.
[Footnote 39] We then reviewed plans to determine if they addressed
these leading practices. For the four management areas, we examined
plans, organization charts, and program records to determine whether
and when managers had been assigned. To the extent that MIDAS had
progressed to a stage where implementation of these practices would be
appropriate, we reviewed program artifacts and interviewed program
officials to determine the extent to which the practices were in place.
We assessed a practice as being satisfied if the evidence provided by
USDA and FSA officials demonstrated all aspects of the leading
practice. We assessed a practice as being not satisfied if the
evidence did not demonstrate any aspect of the leading practice, or if
no evidence was provided by USDA or FSA for that practice. Finally, we
assessed a practice as being partially satisfied if the evidence
demonstrated some, but not all, aspects of the leading practice.
Additional considerations in our evaluation of each management area
follow.
* Project planning and monitoring: We compared program plans,
including the project management plan and supporting documentation,
against leading practices to determine whether such practices were
specified in the plans. We also examined program artifacts and records
to determine the extent to which an integrated project team, an
integrated project schedule with external dependencies, and tracking
and reporting of program progress outside the program were in place.
Due to the early stage of the program, we did not verify whether
earned value management had been executed and reported as planned or
whether organizational change and communications activities had been
executed as planned.
* Requirements management: We compared the requirements management
plan and related documents against leading practices to determine
whether such practices had been specified in the plans. Because
requirements were in the early stages of being defined during the
period of this review, we did not verify whether FSA was executing its
requirements management approach as planned. However, we reviewed a
2008 requirements document containing previously elicited user
requirements and interviewed FSA officials to determine how those
requirements had been validated.
* Contract management: We compared program plans, including the
project management plan and supporting documentation, against leading
practices to determine whether such practices had been specified in
the plans. Due to the critical role of the system integrator contract
in achieving program goals, we focused our assessment on this
contract, the deliverables specified in this contract, and the review
criteria for one deliverable--the strategy plan to decompose the
requirements document. We verified whether the review criteria had
been applied to this deliverable. We did not verify whether other
planning phase contract deliverables had been evaluated by the gate
review panel according to corresponding review criteria. We compared
the descriptions of contractor tasks from contract management
documents to each other and when we identified similar or identical
tasks for different contractors, we interviewed FSA officials to
obtain their explanations for the roles of each contractor and to
clarify the contract management documentation. We reviewed the risk
inventory to determine whether duplicate contractor roles had been
identified as risks and how the risks were described.
* Risk management: We compared the risk management plan and supporting
documentation against leading practices to determine whether such
practices had been specified in plans. We also reviewed the November
2010 risk inventory to assess whether risks had been aligned with risk
factors such as mitigation plans and status. We did not assess whether
FSA assigned the risk indicators according to the criteria in the risk
management plan. To assess whether the risk inventory was being
updated, we compared the November 2010 risk inventory to risk
inventories from January 2011 and May 2011 to characterize overall
changes to risks, mitigation strategies, and status, and to determine
whether the inventories clearly captured progress in addressing
selected risks.
To determine whether MIDAS has appropriate executive oversight and
governance, we reviewed USDA guidance for investment management,
project plans, charters, and meeting minutes for the governance
bodies, agency presentations, and 2009 and 2010 USDA and FSA reports
to Congress to identify the executive oversight and governance bodies,
responsibilities, and hierarchy for MIDAS. We also interviewed USDA
and FSA officials about MIDAS governance structure and practices. We
compared the information we obtained with USDA's capital planning and
investment control guidance, which comports with federal IT investment
management guidance, and with our IT investment management
framework[Footnote 40] to ascertain whether USDA had complied with its
own guidance for overseeing the investment and the extent to which
governance bodies, their responsibilities, and processes had been
defined.
We performed our work at the USDA office in Washington, D.C. We
conducted this performance audit from October 2010 to July 2011 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: MIDAS Farm Programs:
Farm program:
1. Asparagus Market Loss Program.
2. Average Crop Revenue Election.
3. Biomass Crop Assistance Program.
4. Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.
5. Conservation Reserve Program.
6. Cottonseed Program.
7. Dairy Indemnity Payments Program.
8. Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payments Program.
9. Durum Wheat Quality Program.
10. Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-raised
Fish.
11. Emergency Conservation Program.
12. Emergency Forest Restoration Program.
13. Emergency Forestry Conservation Program.
14. Emergency Livestock Assistance Program.
15. Farm Storage Facility Loan Program.
16. Farmable Wetlands Program.
17. Geographically Disadvantaged Farmer or Rancher.
18. Grassland Reserve Program.
19. Hard White Wheat Development Program.
20. Karnal Bunt Program.
21. Livestock Forage Disaster Program.
22. Livestock Indemnity Program.
23. Loan Deficiency Payments.
24. Marketing Assistance Loans.
25. Milk Income Loss Contract Program.
26. Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program.
27. Oil Seed Quality Incentives Program.
28. Source Water Protection Program.
29. Sugar Loan Program.
30. Sugar Storage Facility Loan Program.
31. Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program.
32. Tobacco Transition Payment Programs.
33. Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers Program.
34. Transition Incentives Program.
35. Tree Assistance Program.
36. Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program.
37. Boll Weevil Eradication Loan Program.
Source: FSA reported data.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Agriculture:
USDA:
United States Department of Agriculture:
Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services:
Farm Service Agency:
Office of the Administrator:
1400 Independence Ave, SW:
Stop 0501:
Washington, DC 20250-5501:
July 6, 2011:
T0: David A. Powner:
Director, Information Technology Management:
Government Accountability Office:
From: [Signed by] Bruce Nelson:
Administrator:
Farm Service Agency:
Subject: Response to GAO-11-586 Draft Report: USDA Systems
Modernization - Management and Oversight Improvement Are Needed:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) generally agrees with the
content and recommendations in the draft report.
Based on the planning, requirements and design sessions in Fiscal Year
(FY) 2011, USDA will review and revise as appropriate the overall
schedule, costs and milestones and submit them as part of this year's
Office of Management and Budget business case/capital planning
submission process. In addition, at the completion of the primary
blueprinting and design phase in the first quarter of FY 2012, the
Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS)
program will be able to more precisely estimate the cost and iterative
schedules for the solution deployment phases by the end of the second
quarter of FY 2012.
USDA also will complete the program management plan and risk
management improvements by the end of the second quarter of FY 2012.
This effort will include the validation of the user pain points
against the requirements. And, USDA will develop the processes for
maintaining the external project team stakeholder commitment and
integrated initiative schedule.
In addition, to ensure that the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) is
employing leading practices for program planning and monitoring
requirements, management, contract management, and risk management;
the FSA, in coordination with the USDA Chief Information Officer, the
Office of the Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agriculture
Services, and relevant Departmental agency heads, will assess and re-
charter the initiative governance. The charter, sponsored by the
Secretary, will be completed by the end of the second quarter of FY
2012, including a delineation of the roles, responsibilities and
processes.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
David A. Powner, (202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact name above, the following staff made key
contributions to this report: Paula Moore (assistant director), Neil
Doherty, Claudia Fletcher, Nancy Glover, Javier Irizarry, and Karl
Seifert.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] FSA estimates that the total amount of fiscal year 2010 payments
was $10 billion.
[2] The other two agencies are the Natural Resources Conservation
Service, which administers programs that provide funding to landowners
and other partners, and Rural Development, which offers business loans
and grant programs for rural development.
[3] See also the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program,
authorized by the 2008 farm bill, the Food, Conservation, and Energy
Act of 2008, as amended, Pub. L. No. 110-246, § 12033(b), 122 Stat.
1651, 2156, June 18, 2008. This program provides crop disaster
payments for eligible losses incurred during years 2008 through 2011.
[4] FSA began migrating selected applications to the Web farm in 2002.
In late 2006, it began experiencing performance issues with the Web
farm and began an effort to correct the problems with an initiative
called Stabilization, which cost $118.7 million and was reported as
being completed in fiscal year 2010.
[5] The common computing environment provides administrative
applications--such as common e-mail, telecommunications, and Microsoft
Office tools--to the three service center agencies. FSA reported that
upgrades to the common computing environment will help ensure that the
FSA local office staff have the desktop computers, telecommunication,
and Internet services to use the program applications.
[6] GAO, Information Technology: Agriculture Needs to Strengthen
Management Practices for Stabilizing Its Farm Program Delivery
Systems, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-657]
(Washington, D.C.: May 16, 2008); FSA, MIDAS C1-04 Concept of
Operations (October 2010); MIDAS Project Management Plan (PMP) (August
2010); BearingPoint, Delivery of Legislatively Mandated Farm Benefit
Programs: A Third Party Report on Modernization and Stabilization at
FSA (January 2009).
[7] See for example the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments
Program included in the most recent farm bill--the Food, Conservation,
and Energy Act of 2008, as amended, Pub. L. No. 110-246, § 12033(b).
[8] Enterprise resource planning refers to commercial off-the-shelf
software that incorporates shared data from various lines of business
and that is consistent across an entire organization.
[9] Pub. L. No. 110-246, Sec. 1618, 122 Stat. 1651, 1750, June 18,
2008; H.R. Rep. No. 111-279, at 70-71 (2009) (Conf. Rep.); and H.R.
Rep. No. 110-258, at 57 (2007).
[10] FSA, A Report to Congress on FSA IT Systems Modernization and
Stabilization (August 2010); USDA, A Report to Congress on the USDA's
Oversight of FSA's IT Modernization (September 2009); and USDA, A
Report to Congress on the MIDAS Program (Washington, D.C., August
2008).
[11] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-657].
[12] This review also assessed the extent to which USDA's
stabilization plan addressed key management issues for its existing
farm program delivery systems.
[13] GAO, Information Technology: Foundational Steps Being Taken to
Make Needed FBI Systems Modernization Management Improvements,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-842] (Washington, D.C.:
Sept. 10, 2004) and Information Technology: FBI Is Implementing Key
Acquisition Methods on Its New Case Management System, but Related
Agencywide Guidance Needs to Be Improved, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1014] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23,
2008).
[14] Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity Model®
Integration for Development (CMMI), version 1.2 (Pittsburgh, Penn.,
August 2006) and Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity
Model® Integration for Acquisition (CMMI), version 1.2 (Pittsburgh,
Penn., November 2007).
[15] OMB Cir. A-11, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to Part 7:
Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets, (Washington,
D.C.: June 2006).
[16] GAO, Information Technology Investment Management: A Framework
for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G] (Washington, D.C.: March
2004); Information Technology: U.S. Postal Service Needs to Strengthen
System Acquisition and Management Capabilities to Improve Its
Intelligent Mail Full Service Program, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-145] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 29,
2009); DOD Business Systems Modernization: Billions Continue to Be
Invested with Inadequate Management Oversight and Accountability,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-615] (Washington, D.C.:
May 27, 2004).
[17] For example, monthly reports are posted on the OMB Web-based IT
Dashboard, at [hyperlink, http://it.usaspending.gov].
[18] OMB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information
Technology Management (Washington, D.C., Dec. 9, 2010).
[19] The variance in the estimated development cost is roughly
estimated at -50% to +100%.
[20] FSA officials reported in April 2011 that USDA had budgeted and
approved $50 million for MIDAS for fiscal year 2011.
[21] Approximately $5 million has been obligated for acquisition
support and government salaries and expenses.
[22] The MIDAS budget and cost management plan states that cost
estimates will be based on our cost estimating guide, GAO, Cost
Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Developing and
Managing Capital Program Costs, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-3SP] (Washington, D.C.: March 2009).
[23] OMB's 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information
Technology Management report, released in December 2010, advises
agencies to use a modular system of development for IT projects.
[24] Maintenance is planned through fiscal year 2018.
[25] FSA identified nine common processes that are used by more than
one farm program: agreement modifications, agreements, application,
assessment, audit, claims, payments, program management, and
repayments.
[26] CMMI for Development, version 1.2; [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G].
[27] OMB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information
Technology Management.
[28] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-3SP].
[29] OMB and our cost guidance (GAO-09-3SP) call for monitoring
project cost, schedule, and performance compliance using an industry
standard (ANSI/EIA 748-B, Earned Value Management Systems, approved
July 2007).
[30] This Web site, at [hyperlink, http://it.usaspending.gov], tracks
major federal IT investments.
[31] CMMI for Development, version 1.2.
[32] CMMI for Acquisition, version 1.2, and GAO, Information
Technology: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Needs to Fully Address
Significant Infrastructure Modernization Program Management
Weaknesses, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-565]
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 27, 2007).
[33] CMMI for Acquisition, version 1.2, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-145], and [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-565].
[34] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G], [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-145], and GAO, United States Coast
Guard: Improvements Needed in Management and Oversight of Rescue
System Acquisition, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-623] (Washington, D.C.: May 31,
2006).
[35] OMB Cir. A-11, Capital Programming Guide, Supplement to Part 7:
Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets (Washington,
D.C.: June 2006).
[36] GAO, Information Technology: OMB's Dashboard Has Increased
Transparency and Oversight, but Improvements Needed, GAO-10-701
(Washington, D.C.: July 16, 2010).
[37] FSA officials reported that another body that was to perform this
role, called the Enterprise Resource Planning Center of Excellence, is
not overseeing MIDAS.
[38] The IT Dashboard [hytperlink, http://it.usaspending.gov] tracks
the performance of major federal IT investments. The dashboard CIO
rating for MIDAS was 3 out of 5 in January 2011 and 4 out of 5 in
March 2011.
[39] Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity Model®
Integration for Development (CMMI), version 1.2 (Pittsburgh, Penn.,
August 2006) and Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity
Model® Integration for Acquisition (CMMI), version 1.2 (Pittsburgh,
Penn., November 2007).
[40] GAO, Information Technology Investment Management: A Framework
for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G] (Washington, D.C.: March
2004).
[End of section]
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