Information technology should enable government to better serve the American people. However, despite spending hundreds of billions on IT since 2000, the federal government has experienced failed IT projects and has achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has realized from IT. Too often, federal IT projects run over budget, behind schedule, or fail to deliver results. In combating this problem, proper oversight is critical. Both OMB and federal agencies have key roles and responsibilities for overseeing IT investment management, and OMB is responsible for working with agencies to ensure investments are appropriately planned and justified. However, as we have described in numerous reports, although a variety of best practices exist to guide their successful acquisition, federal IT projects too frequently incur cost overruns and schedule slippages while contributing little to mission-related outcomes. Agencies have reported that poor-performing projects have often used a “big bang” approach—that is, projects that are broadly scoped and aim to deliver capability several years after initiation. For example, in 2009 the Defense Science Board reported that the Department of Defense’s (Defense) acquisition process for IT systems was too long, ineffective, and did not accommodate the rapid evolution of IT. The board reported that the average time to deliver an initial program capability for a major IT system acquisition at Defense was over 7 years. Each year, OMB and federal agencies work together to determine how much the government plans to spend on IT projects and how these funds are to be allocated. As reported to OMB, federal agencies plan to spend more than $82 billion on IT investments in fiscal year 2014, which is the total expended for not only acquiring such investments, but also the funding to operate and maintain them. Of the reported amount, 27 federal agencies plan to spend about $75 billion: $17 billion on development and acquisition and $58 billion on operations and maintenance (O&M). Figure 1 shows the percentages of total planned spending for 2014 for the $75 billion spent on development and O&M. However, this $75 billion does not reflect the spending of the entire federal government. We have previously reported that OMB’s figure understates the total amount spent in IT investments. Specifically, it does not include IT investments by 58 independent executive branch agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency or by the legislative or judicial branches. Further, agencies differed on what they considered an IT investment; for example, some have considered research and development systems as IT investments, while others have not. As a result, not all IT investments are included in the federal government’s estimate of annual IT spending. OMB provided guidance to agencies on how to report on their IT investments, but this guidance did not ensure complete reporting or facilitate the identification of duplicative investments. Consequently, we recommended, among other things, that OMB improve its guidance to agencies on identifying and categorizing IT investments. Further, over the past several years, we have reported that overlap and fragmentation among government programs or activities could be harbingers of unnecessary duplication. Thus, the reduction or elimination of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of tax dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services. OMB has implemented a series of initiatives to improve the oversight of underperforming investments, more effectively manage IT, and address duplicative investments. These efforts include the following: IT Dashboard. Given the importance of transparency, oversight, and management of the government’s IT investments, in June 2009, OMB established a public website, referred to as the IT Dashboard, that provides detailed information on 760 major IT investments at 27 federal agencies, including ratings of their performance against cost and schedule targets. The public dissemination of this information is intended to allow OMB; other oversight bodies, including Congress; and the general public to hold agencies accountable for results and performance. Among other things, agencies are to submit Chief Information Officer (CIO) ratings, which, according to OMB’s instructions, should reflect the level of risk facing an investment on a scale from 1 (high risk) to 5 (low risk) relative to that investment’s ability to accomplish its goals. Ultimately, CIO ratings are assigned colors for presentation on the Dashboard, according to the five-point rating scale, as illustrated in table 1. As of April 2014, according to the IT Dashboard, 201 of the federal government’s 760 major IT investments—totaling $12.4 billion—were in need of management attention (rated “yellow” to indicate the need for attention or “red” to indicate significant concerns). (See fig. 2.) TechStat reviews. In January 2010, the Federal CIO began leading TechStat sessions—face-to-face meetings to terminate or turnaround IT investments that are failing or are not producing results. These meetings involve OMB and agency leadership and are intended to increase accountability and transparency and improve performance. Subsequently, OMB empowered agency CIOs to hold their own TechStat sessions within their respective agencies. According to the former Federal CIO, the efforts of OMB and federal agencies to improve management and oversight of IT investments have resulted in almost $4 billion in savings. Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative. Concerned about the growing number of federal data centers, in February 2010 the Federal CIO established the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative. This initiative’s four high-level goals are to promote the use of “green IT” by reducing the overall energy and real estate footprint of government data centers; reduce the cost of data center hardware, software, and operations; increase the overall IT security posture of the government; and shift IT investments to more efficient computing platforms and technologies. OMB believes that this initiative has the potential to provide about $3 billion in savings by the end of 2015. IT Reform Plan. In December 2010, OMB released its 25-point plan to reform federal IT. This document established an ambitious plan for achieving operational efficiencies and effectively managing large- scale IT programs. In particular, as part of an effort to reduce the risk associated with IT acquisitions, the plan calls for federal IT programs to deploy capabilities or functionality in release cycles no longer than 12 months, and ideally, less than 6 months. The plan also identifies key actions that can help agencies implement this incremental development guidance, such as working with Congress to develop IT budget models that align with incremental development and issuing contracting guidance and templates to support incremental development. PortfolioStat. In order to eliminate duplication, move to shared services, and improve portfolio management processes, in March 2012, OMB launched the PortfolioStat initiative. Specifically, PortfolioStat requires agencies to conduct an annual agency-wide IT portfolio review to, among other things, reduce commodity IT spending and demonstrate how their IT investments align with the agency’s mission and business functions. PortfolioStat is designed to assist agencies in assessing the current maturity of their IT investment management process, making decisions on eliminating duplicative investments, and moving to shared solutions in order to maximize the return on IT investments across the portfolio. OMB believes that the PortfolioStat effort has the potential to save the government $2.5 billion over the next 3 years by, for example, consolidating duplicative systems. Given the magnitude of the federal government’s annual IT budget, which is expected to be more than $82 billion in fiscal year 2014, it is important that agencies leverage all available opportunities to ensure that their IT investments are acquired in the most effective manner possible. To do so, agencies can rely on IT acquisition best practices, incremental development, and initiatives such as OMB’s IT Dashboard and OMB- mandated TechStat sessions. Additionally, agencies can save billions of dollars by continuing to consolidate federal data centers and by eliminating duplicative investments through OMB’s PortfolioStat initiative. Best Practices Are Intended to Help Ensure Successful Major Acquisitions In 2011, we identified seven successful acquisitions and nine common factors critical to their success and noted that (1) the factors support OMB’s objective of improving the management of large-scale IT acquisitions across the federal government and (2) wide dissemination of these factors could complement OMB’s efforts. Specifically, we reported that federal agency officials identified seven successful acquisitions, in that they best achieved their respective cost, schedule, scope, and performance goals. Notably, all of these were smaller increments, phases, or releases of larger projects. The common factors critical to the success of three or more of the seven acquisitions are generally consistent with those developed by private industry and are identified in table 2. These critical factors support OMB’s objective of improving the management of large-scale IT acquisitions across the federal government; wide dissemination of these factors could complement OMB’s efforts. IT Dashboard Can Improve the Transparency into and Oversight of Major IT Investments The IT Dashboard serves an important role in allowing OMB and other oversight bodies to hold agencies accountable for results and performance. However, we have issued a series of reports highlighting deficiencies with the accuracy and reliability of the data reported on the Dashboard. For example, we reported in October 2012 that Defense had not rated any of its investments as either high or moderately high risk and that, in selected cases, these ratings did not appropriately reflect significant cost, schedule, and performance issues reported by GAO and others. We recommended that Defense ensure that its CIO ratings reflect available investment performance assessments and its risk management guidance. Defense concurred and has revised its process to address these concerns. Further, while we reported in 2011 that the accuracy of Dashboard cost and schedule data had improved over time, more recently, in December 2013 we found that agencies had removed investments from the Dashboard by reclassifying their investments—representing a troubling trend toward decreased transparency and accountability. Specifically, the Department of Energy reclassified several of its supercomputer investments from IT to facilities and the Department of Commerce decided to reclassify its satellite ground system investments.