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Business Modernization: NASA Must Consider Agencywide Needs to Reap the Full Benefits of Its Enterprise Management System Modernization Effort
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.
Since 1990, GAO has designated the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) contract management as an area of high risk in part because it lacked modern systems to provide accurate and reliable information on contract spending. In April 2000, NASA began a system modernization effort, known as the Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP). When GAO last reported on the status of IEMP in September 2005, NASA had begun to implement disciplined processes needed to manage IEMP, but had yet to implement other best practices such as adopting business processes that improve information on contract spending. This GAO report addresses (1) actions taken by NASA to effectively implement the disciplined processes needed to manage IEMP and (2) the extent to which NASA has considered the strategic issues associated with developing a concept of operations and defining standard business processes. GAO interviewed NASA officials and obtained and analyzed documentation relevant to the issues.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) nonintegrated financial management systems have weakened its ability to oversee its contractors, and its contract management has been on GAO's high-risk list since 1990. In April 2000, NASA began its Integrated Financial Management Program (IFMP), its third attempt in recent years at modernizing financial management processes and systems. GAO was asked to review whether NASA was following key best practices in acquiring IFMP components and implementing one of the first components--the core financial module. The core financial module, if implemented as planned, may provide some improvement to NASA's accounting system environment. However, NASA is not following key best practices for acquiring and implementing IFMP. In acquiring IFMP components, NASA is facing risks in understanding dependencies among commercial components. NASA has not analyzed the interdependencies among selected and proposed IFMP components, and it does not have a methodology for doing so. For programs like IFMP, which involve building a system from commercial components, it is essential to understand the characteristics and credentials of each component to select ones that are compatible and can be integrated without having to build and maintain expensive interfaces. By acquiring IFMP components without first understanding system component relationships, NASA has increased its risks of implementing a system that will not optimize mission performance and will cost more and take longer to implement than necessary. In implementing the core financial module, NASA is facing risks in two additional areas. User needs: NASA did not consider the information needs of key system users and deferred addressing the requirements of program managers, cost estimators, and the Congress. Although this module should eliminate NASA's separate, incompatible accounting systems, little has been done to reengineer acquisition management processes. Program managers and cost estimators indicated that they will continue to rely on other means to capture the data needed to manage programs such as the International Space Station. Requirements management: NASA is relying on a requirements management process that does not require documentation of detailed system requirements prior to system implementation and testing. Over 80 percent of the requirements GAO reviewed lacked specificity, and several could not be traced among various documents. These defects also significantly impaired the testing phase of the system implementation effort. Further, NASA has not implemented metrics to help gauge the effectiveness of its requirements management process. NASA's approach will likely result in increasing amounts of time spent on costly rework and reduced progress. Unless these issues are successfully addressed, NASA is at increased risk of having IFMP become its third unsuccessful attempt to transform its financial management and business operations.
In 2005, there was testimony on the status of NASA¿s financial mgmt. reform efforts. NASA faces major financial mgmt. challenges that, if not addressed, will weaken its ability to manage its highly complex programs. NASA has been a high-risk agency since 1990 because of its failure to effectively oversee its contracts, due in part to the agency¿s lack of accurate and reliable info. on contract spending. This statement focuses on: NASA¿s key financial mgmt. challenges; how NASA¿s financial mgmt. challenges compare with other fed. agencies; an assessment of NASA¿s progress toward implementing recommendations aimed at improving its financial mgmt. system; and the steps NASA must take to reform its financial mgmt. organization. Charts.