Business Modernization: Improvements Needed in Management of NASA’s Integrated Financial Management Program, GAO-03-507
Full report (PDF)
What GAO Found
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:
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.
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.
Why GAO Did This Study
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.
What GAO Recommends
GAO is recommending that NASA
develop and implement (1) a shortterm
plan to identify and mitigate
the risks currently associated with
relying on already deployed IFMP
commercial components and (2) a
longer term strategy for acquiring
additional IFMP components that
includes implementing a
methodology for commercial
system component dependency
analysis. NASA agreed with GAO’s
recommendation related to a shortterm
plan but disagreed with many
of the findings related to user
needs and requirements
management. NASA also agreed
with the importance of having an
approach for acquiring additional
IFMP components, but stated that
it already has an effective strategy
in place. GAO reaffirms its
recommendations.
