IT Dashboard: Agencies Are Managing Investment Risk, but Related Ratings Need to Be More Accurate and Available Page: 2 of 60
This report is part of the collection entitled: Government Accountability Office Reports and was provided to UNT Digital Library by the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
G, A
Highlights
Highlights of GAO-14-64, a report to
congressional requesters
Why GAO Did This Study
OMB launched the Dashboard in June
2009 as a public Web site that reports
performance for major IT
investments-on which the federal
government plans to invest over $38
billion in fiscal year 2014. The
Dashboard is to provide transparency
for these investments and to facilitate
public monitoring of them. After its
launch, OMB began using it to identify
at-risk investments.
This report (1) characterizes the CIO
ratings for selected federal agencies'
IT investments as reported on the
Dashboard over time, (2) determines
the extent to which selected agencies'
CIO ratings are consistent with
investment risk, and (3) determines the
extent to which selected agencies are
addressing at-risk investments. GAO
selected the eight agencies with the
most reported major IT spending in
fiscal year 2012 (excluding those GAO
recently reviewed) and selected 10
investments at each agency. GAO
reviewed the investments'
documentation, compared it to the CIO
ratings, and reviewed processes used
for the highest-risk investments. GAO
also interviewed appropriate officials.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that OMB make
Dashboard information available
independent of the budget process,
and that agencies appropriately
categorize IT investments and address
identified weaknesses. OMB neither
agreed nor disagreed. Six agencies
generally agreed with the report or had
no comments and two others did not
agree, believing their categorizations
were appropriate. GAO continues to
believe its recommendations remain
valid, as discussed.
View GAO-14-64. For more information,
contact David A. Powner at (202) 512-9286 or
pownerd@gao.gov.IT DASHBOARD
Agencies Are Managing Investment Risk, but Related
Ratings Need to Be More Accurate and AvailableWhat GAO Found
As of August 2013, the Chief Information Officers (CIO) at the eight selected
agencies rated 198 of their 244 major information technology (IT) investments
listed on the Federal IT Dashboard (Dashboard) as low risk or moderately low
risk, 41 as medium risk, and 5 as high risk or moderately high risk. However, the
total number of investments reported by these agencies has varied over time,
which impacts the number of investments receiving CIO ratings. For example,
Energy reclassified several of its supercomputer investments from IT to facilities
and Commerce decided to reclassify its satellite ground system investments.
Both decisions resulted in the removal of the investments from the Dashboard,
even though the investments were clearly IT. In addition, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) does not update the public version of the
Dashboard as the President's budget request is being created. As a result, the
public version of the Dashboard was not updated for 15 of the past 24 months,
and so was not available as a tool for investment oversight and decision making.
Of the 80 investments reviewed, 53 of the CIO ratings were consistent with the
investment risk, 20 were partially consistent, and 7 were inconsistent (see table).Table: Consistency of Selected Ag
Agency Rat
Department of Agriculture *
Department of Commerce *
Department of Energy *
Department of Justice *
Department of Transportation *
Department of the Treasury *
Department of Veterans Affairs o
Social Security Administration *encies' CIO Ratings with Supporting Documentation
ing consistency of each agency's 10 selected investments
* o o o o o o o C
* * * * * * * o o~* 0 0
* 0 0
* 0 0
* 0 0" C C
* o o
* 0 *0C C C
* 0 o0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
* * * * * * * * o
Key: 0: The investment's ratings were consistent with supporting documents. C: The investment's
ratings were partially consistent with supporting documents. 0: The investment's ratings were
inconsistent with supporting documents.
Source: GAO analysis of OMB's Dashboard and agency data.
While two agencies' CIO ratings were entirely consistent, other agencies' ratings
were inconsistent for a variety of reasons, including delays in updating the
Dashboard and how investment performance was tracked. For example, the
Department of Justice downgraded an investment in July 2012, but the
Dashboard was not updated to reflect this until April 2013. Further, the Social
Security Administration resets investment cost and schedule performance
baselines annually, an approach that increases the risk of undetected cost or
schedule variances that will impact investment success.
Of the eight investments that were at highest risk in 2012, seven were reviewed
by their agencies using tools such as TechStat sessions-evidence-based
reviews intended to improve investment performance and other high-level
reviews. Each of these resulted in action items intended to improve performance.
The final investment was scheduled to have a TechStat, but instead, according to
department officials, a decision was made to modify its program cost and
schedule commitments to better reflect the investment's actual performance.United States Government Accountability Office
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This report can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Report.
United States. Government Accountability Office. IT Dashboard: Agencies Are Managing Investment Risk, but Related Ratings Need to Be More Accurate and Available, report, December 12, 2013; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc302755/m1/2/: accessed April 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.