IT Acquisition Advisory Council
904 Clifton Drive, Alexandria, VA 22308
(703) 768-0400 (v) (703) 765-9295 (f)
www.ICHnet.org
Roadmap for Sustainable IT Acquisition Reform
A Transformational Guide for our National IT Leadership and the 44th President
DRAFT Outline - Roadmap for Sustainable IT Acquisition Reform – DRAFT Outline
68
IT Acquisition Advisory Council
904 Clifton Drive, Alexandria, VA 22308
(703) 768-0400 (v) (703) 765-9295 (f)
www.ICHnet.org
TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
Roadmap for Sustainable IT Acquisition Reform 3
Preface: Acquisition Reform. Achieving Key Administration Objectives and Priorities 4
Executive Summary and Approach: (John Weiler ICH) 5
Summary of Common IT Acquisition Impediments and Recommendations: 8
Chapter 1: Introduction to IT Acquisition Challenges: 9
Chapter 2: IT Policy. 17
Chapter 3: Requirements, Architecture and Acquisition Process Reform: 24
Chapter 4: “We don’t need no stinking requirements. Just buy IT.” 29
Chapter 5: Leaving the Runner (Innovation) Stranded on 1st). 31
Chapter 6: How Requirements Over Specification undermine COTS/Open Source Adoption 34
Chapter 7: Optimizing IT Eco-system and supply supply chain contribution and incentives. 37
Chapter 8: Acquisition Leadership, Accountability and Transparency. 40
Chapter 9: Speeding Assessments, Testing, Certification and Accreditation. 51
Chapter 10: Summary Conclusions. A Roadmap to IT Acquisition Reform we can believe in. 53
Appendix A: Confirmed IT-AAC Industry Leadership Board & Committee Chairs 59
Appendix B: Invited Government Advisory Panel (confirming in bold) 60
Appendix C: Prior Studies and Research 62
Appendix D: Case Studies, Anatomy of Failure. 63
Appendix E: Case Studies, Innovative Approaches that are delivering results. 63
Roadmap for Sustainable IT Acquisition Reform
A play by play guide on how the Obama-Biden Administration can save $50 Billion per year in avoidable IT program failures and cost overruns.
About the IT-AAC: (Kevin Carroll ICH, Bill Campbell BAE) overview of commission.
The IT-AAC is a public/private partnership formed to bring together the collective experience and expertise of world class people and organizations who are committed to guiding the Obama-Biden Administration through real IT Acquisition Reform. Its members realize that this problem has been studied to death, with some 130 reports already identified. The IT-AAC will build on this body of knowledge and bring together the collective knowledge needed to establish the roots causes of failure and an actionable roadmap that will drive measurable results. The first deliverable will be a Root Cause Analysis derived from past studies and experiences of this commission. IT-AAC seeks to bring together common cause of a public sector non-profits including;
·
· University of Maryland, School of Public Policy
· MIT SLOAN School
· National Defense University
· Defense Acquisition University
· University of Tennessee
· Coalition for Government Procurement
· Aerospace Corporation
· Computer and Communications Industry Association
· Convergent Technology Corp.
· Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICHnet.org)
· Object Management Group (pending)
· SOA Consortium (pending)
· And dozens of former and current public servants who have chosen to put their country first over individual or corporate interests.
Preface: Acquisition Reform. Achieving Key Administration Objectives and Priorities.
Acquisition Reform is not new to the federal government. Since the signing of the Clinger Cohen Act, it seems to come back every so many years, with fresh ideas, but little results. For some, it adds additional layers of bureaucracy and oversight each cycle, without removing any legacy processes. Recently, the Acquisition Community spoke out, and said “no more reform”. Many believe the government has good policies that are not adequately enforced. CCA checklists never seem to validate the sources or quality of analysis that might reveal critical flaws in our assumptions, our requirements, our architectures and our assessment of IT market readiness. As our Nation faces some of its greatest challenges, and increased urgency to deliver critical IT capabilities to meet our many threats (Cyber Security, Information Sharing, E-Health, E-Government), there is no time better than now to address the root causes of past failures.
“Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations,businesses, andindividuals in the private sector.” Whitehouse.gov
“Create Transparency for Military Contractors: President Obama and Vice President Biden will require the Pentagon and State Department to develop a strategy for determining when contracting makes sense, rather than continually handing off governmental jobs to well-connected companies. They will create the transparency and accountability needed for good governance, and establish the legal status of contractor personnel, making possible prosecution of any abuses committed by private military contractors.” Whitehouse.org
“Restore Honesty, Openness, and Commonsense to Contracting and Procurement: The Obama-Biden Administration will realize savings by reducing the corruption and cost overruns that have become all too routine in defense contracting. This includes launching a program of acquisition reform and management, which would end the common practice of no-bid contracting.” Whitehouse.org
Executive Summary and Approach: (John Weiler ICH)
The Obama-Biden Administration has placed Acquisition Reform and IT Innovation among its top priorities. This commission will bring together the combined experts and expertise needed to objectively guide transformational decisions in terms of IT Acquisition Policies, Processes, Methods and Collaborative approaches needed to meet the President’s desired outcomes.
This IT Acquisition Reform Roadmap will be detailed and propagated by 10 IT-AAC sub-committees each with a chair, a co-chair and supporting working group members.
§ The working groups will follow the direction of their chairs and lay out its recommendations and supporting evidence, both in terms of root cause analysis and specific action items for congress, agency heads (DoD, Intel, Civilian) and White House/OMB.
§ Only those recommendations supported by evidenced-based research (including past studies), will be incorporated into this Roadmap Report.
§ Case studies and support research reports will be summaries in separate appendices.
§ Final report will be delivered to the Armed Services Committee, OMB, Government Reform Committee and other venues as determined by IT-AAC leadership consensus.
§ It is hypothesized that streamlined acquisition processes needed for IT Acquisitions will support all other types of acquisitions except for Weapon Systems Platforms.
§ Efforts will be made to identify separate acquisition swim lanes for disparate classes of acquisition.
Committees will seek to put the past studies and recommendations into an actionable roadmap. The IT-AAC has identified a dozen key studies and reports that will be incorporated by reference, developed by CSIS, Rand, ICH, ACT/IAC, AF-SAB, DSB, Markle Foundation, NDU/DAU, and independent sources. To assure maximum consensus and transparency, all recommendations and findings will be sourced, avoiding any subjective analysis if possible.
The goal is to provide decision makers within White house, Congressional and Agency leadership in revamping IT Acquisition policies and processes required to ensure the effectiveness, timeliness and transparency of its estimated $177B investments.
If properly applied, this effort could effect a major economic stimulus for one of the Nation’s greatest industries. An actionable IT reform roadmap would:
§ improve effectiveness and
§ reduce the failure rate of major IT programs and the critical missions they support.
The IT-AAC and its membership offer the administration a conflict free structure, body of knowledge, expertise and analytical mechanisms needed to enable sound decisions on critical issues confronting our national leadership.
The IT-AAC builds on the Interoperability ClearingHouse public/private partnership structure, seasoned thought leaders, and significant body of knowledge associated with 8 years of root cause analysis. The IT-AAC leadership recognizes the increased role technology plays in furthering our nation’s defense, intelligence, healthcare and e-government missions, and brings forth the knowledge and experience needed to make transformational decisions on policies, processes and investments.
To avoid “reinventing the wheel” the IT-AAC is aggregating existing study efforts and communities of practice needed to tap into our Nation’s most experienced and respected experts on IT Acquisition Reform. [aggregation of inconsistent studies may be a disservice – please be careful with these claims – vint cerf] To support this effort, the Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICH) has assembled a significant body of knowledge in the form of Best Practices, Industry Study Groups, Blue Ribbon panels, GAO reports, Public Interest Consortia and other objective sources to better enable effective policy decision making.
1. The resulting emergent public/private partnership is intended to provide our national leadership with collaborative structure, reusable solution frameworks and validated sources not available from traditional contracting mechanisms.
2. The IT-AAC will focus on the changes needed in current acquisition policies, processes and collaborative structures by the fast-paced Information Technology market. We can no longer depend on failed approaches that take too long and cost too much.
3. Furthermore, the federal agencies are experiencing unacceptable IT program failure rates (72-80%) costing the tax payer tens of billions of dollars per year and impeding the delivery of mission critical IT capabilities (not including the Intel Agency budget which is estimated to add another $5B to the problem).
Report Outline
Key Recommendation Areas (John Weiler)
1) CHANGE: IT Acquisitions (excluding Weapon Systems imbedded IT), drives very different architecture and acquisition approaches, cultures and processes, requiring an adaptation needed to drive change and manage risk.
2) LEADERSHIP: IT is a transformational technology, that creates more distracters than advocates, it requires much greater Leadership support, accountability, and authority to be effective. This was the intent of the Clinger Cohen Act. Good policy, poor implementation. Leadership must be engaged, and drive cultural, process and technology changes.
3) OVERSIGHT: Congress and Agency leadership must codify and re-certify program vision, architecture and outcomes through the entire lifecycle, especially when leadership/PM changes occur. Senior leadership attention and commitment to success must come from the top and be driven all the way down to every stake holder and value chain partner.
4) WORKFORCE: IT requires additional disciplines and skills often not present. The work force must be bolstered in a significant way, ensuring qualified and EXPERIENCED staff who are encouraged to understand the technology domains they are supporting. FAI, DAU and NDU should build out their current programs to not only train, but mentor Acquisition PMs to make sure they are vested in the success of the program. Failure risk mitigation must trump process rigidity.
5) PROCESS; (ARCHITECTURE, ACQUSITION & METRICS): PMs must solidify, validate and propagate an actionable/measurable Solution Architecture and Acquisition Strategy that freezing requirements, approach and measurable outcomes. CCA directs agencies to streamline the IT Acquisition Process. A standardized IT Acquisition Playbook, Training Program and Process guide is needed that addresses the unique challenges of the fast paced IT market. Vague requirements and statements of objectives do not work for IT. Every stake holder and value chain participant should sign off on the required interfaces, business process changes and willingness to live with the 80% solutions. Program/Solution Architecture that does not model Excepted Outcomes, Performance Metrics and SLAs will not survive. Leadership driven Business Process Re-engineering is a critical success factor and must be part of the lifecycle process in order to achieve desired efficiencies and outcomes. Rice Bowls and Legacy Systems must be targeted.
6) ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES: With so many participants involved in an IT program, agency acquisition strategy must clarify roles and responsibilities of all participants, seeking to optimize contributions and buy in from the entire value chain. This includes "contracts" with users, overseers, CIOs, CMOs, CPOs, Congress, standards bodies, FFRDCs, non-profits, COTS/Open Source developers and Systems Integrators. Entry/Exit criteria must be established up front to set expectations and time lines.
The IT-AAC Roadmap will contain ten chapters each organized into the following format;
A. Statement of Purpose
B. Discussion
C. Identification of Evidence Sources and Relevant Findings
D. Summary of Findings and Recommendations (Policy, Process, Culture)
E. Expected outcome resulting from adoption of recommendations (ROI)
Summary of Common IT Acquisition Impediments and Recommendations:
Discussion:
· Policies, Process Integration, Acquisition Tools, Incentives, Collaboration, Openness.
· What are unintended road blocks resulting from overlapping policies;
FAR, DoD5000, Title 40, Title 10/CCA.
· How can oversight contribute to success of a program and avoid adding time and cost burdens.
· Discuss impact of lobbying efforts that rail against Program Managers who seek to hold vendors accountable and weaken government ability to make sound decisions.
· What is the impact of commercial vendor earmarks on transparency and compliance.
This report will target key decisions makers and public policy officials from Congress, OMB, Federal CIO Council, Chief Acquisition Officer Council, Chief Financial Officers Council and Congressional Committee staffers.
In a recent GAO report on similarities between DoD and NASA program failures summarized;
“We have found these problems are largely rooted in the failure to match the customer’s needs with the developer’s resources—technical knowledge, timing, and funding—when starting product development. In other words, commitments were made to achieving certain capabilities without knowing whether technologies and/or designs being pursued could really work as intended.”
Chapter 1: Introduction to IT Acquisition Challenges:
(Lewis Shephard Microsoft, Kevin Carroll ICH, Dr. Paul Nielsen, SEI, Steve Cooper, Strativest))
I recommend waiting until you can capture the conclusions and recommendations from each of the other chapters. The findings should be matched-up with recommendations and all of it sorted into sets for Congress, OMB, civilian agencies and DoD and intell. Right now there is not a match between the findings and recommendations, and the recommendations move directly into DoD 5000 and capability assessments which relate to DoD but not the rest of government.. Jonathan D. Breul
Chapter 1 Outline:
- Statement of Purpose
- Discussion
- Identification of Evidence Sources and Relevant Findings
- Summary of Findings and Recommendations (Policy, Process, Culture)
- Expected outcome resulting from adoption of recommendations (ROI)
A. Statement of Purpose
Chapter One: Summary Introduction (Mike Wynne)