Government Computer News
Agencies chip away at BSMs
Project teams continue to struggle implementing new large-scale systems, but some are showing progress
A March 16 report from the Government Accountability Office had a familiar ring to it: Financial Management Systems: Additional Efforts Needed to Address Key Causes of Modernization Failures.
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GAO had for years critiqued the efforts of federal agencies to modernize their business processes and the IT that drives them, often saving its sharpest words for the IRS and Defense Department.
This time, it highlighted a continuing lack of discipline on processes including requirements management, testing, data conversion, system interfaces, and risk and project management. It also called for improvements in enterprise architecture, investment management and security.
In another March report, GAO, while congratulating the IRS on recent progress, chided the agency for mishandling the requirements phase, in which the business processes to be automated are described.
In recent years, GAO has laid blame on some agencies’ faulty management of IT contractors and said poor leadership and planning at DOD led to a stovepiped supply chain system that left soldiers in Iraq short of vehicles, tires, Meals Ready-to-Eat and even paychecks.
Why are so many agencies having trouble, and what is the solution? Agency and industry experts offer a variety of reasons.
It’s no secret that many of the most expensive, over-schedule projects involve enterprise resource planning systems from vendors such as CGI-AMS of Fairfax, Va., Oracle Corp. and SAP America Inc. of Newtown Square, Pa.
ERP systems are extremely complex programs that typically cover core accounting functions, such as general ledger, accounts payable and invoicing, but often include closely related mission-critical functions, such as logistics and procurement. Many observers of the ERP industry say such projects typically are led by IT departments, which runs counter not simply to current conventional wisdom but to actual evidence showing that successful projects tend to be led by the business side of the house.
Joseph Kehoe, vice president of the federal consulting practice at Computer Sciences Corp., which is involved in several modernization efforts including centralizing data operations at NASA and a SAP installation for the Army’s logistics program, said agencies must perform gap analyses to see how the software’s functions—which are typically geared to the private sector—match with public sector needs.
System integrators such as CSC are often called in to perform such analyses, then assist agencies with the difficult task of changing their business processes.
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