Land Management Systems

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is developing the Automated Land and Mineral Record System (ALMRS)/Modernization to improve its ability to record, maintain, and retrieve information on land descriptions, ownership, and use. GAO reported last year that a major component of the ALMRS/Modernization failed to meet BLM's business needs and was not deployable. (See GAO/T-AIMD-99-102, Mar. 1999.) GAO cited many problems and risks that threatened the successful development and deployment of the ALMRS/Modernization and recommended measures to help BLM strengthen its information technology management practices and reduce the risk of future failures. This report determines whether BLM has (1) adequately assessed the usability of the ALMRS Initial Operating Capability and alternatives to meet its business needs, (2) adequately assessed and strengthened its investment management processes and practices, (3) obtained an independent assessment of its systems acquisitions capabilities and strengthened its systems acquisition processes, and (4) made or is making sizable investments before strengthening its investment management and systems acquisition processes.

GAO noted that: (1) BLM has begun to address GAO's recommendations to analyze the usefulness of ALMRS IOC and to assess and strengthen its investment management and systems acquisition capabilities; (2) BLM prepared a preliminary report of its technical and functional analysis of ALMRS IOC and concluded that the system was not operationally ready for deployment because it did not meet the bureau's business needs; (3) according to BLM, ALMRS IOC usability problems could not be repaired without a major technical effort and significant costs; (4) BLM has not yet developed a plan, schedule, or milestones for completing the analysis of ALMRS IOC and other alternatives; (5) BLM has now assessed its information resources management (IRM) methodologies, policies and strategies, and organizational structures; (6) the assessment contractor identified numerous problems and deficiencies and made over 90 recommendations to improve BLM's investment management and IRM functions; (7) BLM is beginning to address the recommendations and strengthen its investment management practices; (8) BLM has also obtained an independent assessment of its systems acquisition capabilities; (9) the assessment contractor found that BLM's acquisition processes are immature, the characteristics of which include the lack of a stable software development and maintenance environment and abandonment of planned procedures when executing projects; (10) the assessment contractor found that BLM's acquisition capabilities were immature; (11) BLM has drafted revised systems acquisition procedures and plans to implement a formal systems acquisition policy after it completes a bureauwide architecture; (12) BLM's chief information officer stated that the bureau is not planning any major systems acquisition or development efforts until after its architecture is completed and its business needs have been documented; (13) BLM is in the early stages of addressing GAO's recommendations to strengthen its investment management and systems acquisition capabilities; and (14) as a result, it is too early to tell whether BLM's efforts will be fully responsive to GAO's recommendations or help reduce its future information technology risks.

Recommendations

Our 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.

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