FEDweek IT

DOD’s business enterprise architecture and process reengineering efforts are not fully achieving the intended outcomes described in statute, GAO has said after interviewing 24 military department portfolio managers and interviewing other officials.

GAO designated DOD’s multibillion-dollar business systems modernization program as high risk in 1995 and since then the department has been working to improve it, for example by improve the data available to track its systems.

However, portfolio managers say that the architecture is not effective in constraining system investments or enabling DoD to produce reliable and timely information for decision-making, according to GAO-15-627.

Portfolio managers also reported that the DoD’s business process reengineering efforts were moderately effective in streamlining business processes, but much less so in limiting the tailoring of commercial off-the-shelf systems. They also said these efforts have been useful in realizing selected benefits, such as improved documentation of business needs.

DoD agreed with recommendations to utilize the results of the survey to determine additional actions that can improve management of its business process reengineering and enterprise architecture activities.