As of November 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) has failed to implement two-thirds of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) prior 12 recommendations to improve the agency’s business IT management and meet U.S. Code requirements.
In a March 5 report, GAO urged the agency to implement the remaining eight recommendations dating back to 2005 to meet legal standards.
“Taking further actions to implement all of the recommendations is essential to helping the department comply with all of the requirements—and ultimately, to strengthen the management of its defense business system investments and efforts to effectively transform its business operations,” the report states.
While DoD has met recommendations to effectively manage and certify its defense business systems, the agency has not met any of GAO’s recommendations to develop and maintain a business and IT enterprise architecture in compliance with relevant laws and Office of Management and Budget guidelines.
Officials within the Office of the CIO told auditors that the agency had plans to integrate its business and IT architectures by the end of 2019 as a part of version three of the DoD Information Enterprise Architecture. The report did not confirm if that action has been completed.
To correct the open recommendation, GAO directs the secretary of defense to:
- Ask the CIO and chief management officer (CMO) to define a specific time frame integration of business and IT architectures and make sure that the integration is completed;
- Direct the CIO to develop an IT enterprise architecture with a transition plan;
- Ensure that the CMO establishes a policy that clarifies the roles, responsibilities, and relationships among leadership throughout the development of the business enterprise architecture;
- Explain when and how the architecture plan would extend to all defense components;
- Direct the deputy CMO to include all critical elements, such as performance measures, into functional strategies, select its investments in a way that best supports mission needs, and develop a plan to address skills gaps in human capital planning; and
- Use the results of the GAO portfolio manager survey to improve management of DoD’s business process and enterprise architecture.
DoD concurred with GAO’s assessment of seven of the recommendations, saying that it completed the human capital recommendation in January 2020. GAO responded that it would review the recommendation.
