Agencies need to improve the accuracy and reliability
the capital asset plans and business cases used to
justify requests for major IT investments, the Government
Accountability Office has said.
It said the content of so-called “exhibit 300” requests
submitted to the Office of Management and Budget should
reflect controls that agencies have established to ensure
good project management, as well as showing that they have
defined cost, schedule, and performance goals.
However, underlying support for the information provided
in the 29 exhibits GAO studied was often inadequate,
according to GAO-06-250.
It identified three general types of weaknesses, and said
all the exhibits had documentation weaknesses because
documentation either didn’t exist or did not fully agree
with specific areas of the exhibits, both of which applied
to calculations of financial benefits for most investments.
For 23 of the 29 investments, information on performance
goals and measures was not supported by explanations of how
agencies initially measured baseline performance levels or
determined actual progress reported in the exhibit 300, GAO
said.
It said agencies sometimes did not demonstrate they had
complied with federal or departmental requirements regarding
management and reporting processes, and that out of 21
investments that were required to use a specific management
system as the basis for the cost, schedule, and performance
information, just six of them did so in accordance with OMB
standards.
None of the exhibits had cost analyses in full compliance with
OMB requirements for cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness
analyses, GAO said.
It added that the weaknesses call into question the business
cases for these major investments as well as the management
quality of the projects.