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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

September 2012: 

Information Technology: 

Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices: 

GAO-12-915: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-12-915, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The 2010 Decennial Census, at a cost of approximately $13 billion, was 
the most expensive headcount in our nation’s history. Prior to the 
2010 Decennial Census, the Census Bureau experienced significant 
challenges in managing its information systems leading to cost 
overruns and performance shortfalls which increased the cost of the 
2010 census by almost $3 billion. Given the bureau’s extensive use of 
IT in collecting, analyzing, and distributing information, GAO was 
asked to determine to what extent the bureau has developed (1) 
effective policies, procedures, and processes for managing IT 
investments and system development; and (2) effective practices for 
acquiring and maintaining IT human capital skills. To address these 
objectives, GAO identified leading practices in these areas, reviewed 
bureau policies and procedures to determine whether they followed 
these practices, and interviewed bureau officials. 

What GAO Found: 

The U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) has drafted a new investment 
management plan, system development methodology, and requirements 
development and management processes to improve its ability to manage 
information technology (IT) investments and system development, but 
additional work is needed to ensure these processes are effective and 
successfully implemented across the bureau. GAO and others have 
identified the importance of implementing critical processes within an 
agency to allow it to select, control, and evaluate its IT investments 
and effectively manage system development. The bureau has developed a 
new draft investment management plan which contains policies and 
guidance for managing IT projects; however, the plan does not explain 
when investments with cost or schedule variances should be escalated 
to higher-level boards for review, or when managers should provide 
updated investment information to a planned bureau-wide tracking tool. 
The bureau has also developed a new system development methodology 
guide, but the guide has critical gaps. For example, although there 
are five development process models allowed, including the traditional 
sequential approach and newer more iterative approaches, the guide 
does not explain how to adapt processes and related work products for 
newer iterative approaches. Furthermore, while the bureau has 
developed new draft requirements development and management processes 
for system development within individual bureau directorates, it has 
not established a consistent process bureau-wide as GAO recommended in 
2005. Lack of a consistent bureau-wide process contributed to 
significant cost and performance issues in the 2010 Decennial Census. 
Although the bureau plans to begin operational development for the 
2020 Decennial Census in fiscal year 2015, it has not finalized plans 
for implementing its new investment management and system development 
processes across the bureau. Until the bureau takes additional action 
to finalize and implement consistent, bureau-wide processes, it faces 
the risk that IT governance issues that adversely affected the 2010 
Decennial Census will also impact the 2020 Decennial Census. 

The bureau has begun to take steps to improve its IT workforce 
planning; however, many key practices consistent with principles for 
effective workforce planning remain to be put in place. In particular, 
there is no bureau-wide coordination of these workforce planning 
efforts. Each directorate is responsible for its own IT workforce 
planning and the bureau has not established any efforts to coordinate 
activities among directorates. While the bureau identified mission 
critical IT occupations and began an assessment of select mission 
critical competencies in June 2011, it does not plan to perform a 
bureau-wide IT competency assessment until the fall of 2012. Until 
bureau-wide IT workforce planning processes are established and the 
bureau develops specific plans to conduct an IT skills inventory and 
gap analysis, the bureau faces the risk that the appropriate IT 
workforce will not be in place to effectively develop and manage 
multimillion dollar investments in information systems and technology 
that will be needed for the 2020 Decennial Census. 

What GAO Recommends: 

To strengthen and improve the Census Bureau’s management of IT, GAO 
recommends that the Acting Secretary of Commerce take eight actions, 
including improvements to guidance for its planned IT investment 
process, a consistent requirements development and management process, 
an implementation plan and time frames for its investment management 
process and system development methodology, and coordination of IT 
workforce planning efforts. In written comments, the Acting Secretary 
concurred with our recommendations and described steps the bureau was 
taking to implement them. 

View GAO-12-915. For more information, contact David A. Powner at 
(202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Census Bureau Has Begun to Improve Its Investment Management and 
System Development Processes, but Has Not Finalized Plans for 
Implementation: 

Census Bureau Does Not Have Bureau-wide Workforce Planning Practices 
for IT Staff: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Commerce: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Assessment of Census Bureau's Enterprise Investment 
Management Plan against the ITIM Framework: 

Table 2: Census Bureau's Implementation of the Investment Management 
Plan and System Development Methodology: 

Table 3: Census Bureau's IT Workforce Planning Practices: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Organizational Chart of the Census Bureau: 

Figure 2: Fundamental Phases of the IT Investment Approach: 

Figure 3: The Five Information Technology Investment Management Stages 
of Maturity with Critical Processes: 

Figure 4: Agile Development Compared with Traditional Waterfall 
Development: 

Abbreviations: 

Census Bureau: U.S. Census Bureau: 

CMMI: Capability Maturity Model Integration: 

IT: information technology: 

ITIM: information technology investment management: 

SEI: Software Engineering Institute: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

September 18, 2012: 

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Scott P. Brown: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, 
Federal Services, and International Security: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Danny K. Davis: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Health Care, District of Columbia, Census, and the 
National Archives: 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 
House of Representatives: 

Providing current and relevant data about the economy and people of 
the United States is the mission of the U.S. Census Bureau (Census 
Bureau) of the Department of Commerce. The data collected are vital 
for determining reapportionment and redistricting of the congressional 
districts for the U.S. House of Representatives; realigning the 
boundaries of the legislative districts of each state; allocating 
money for federal financial assistance; and providing a social, 
demographic, and economic profile of the nation's people to guide 
policy decisions at each level of government. To improve the coverage, 
accuracy, and efficiency of gathering data from the public, the Census 
Bureau relies on automation and information technology (IT). 

Given the Census Bureau's extensive use of IT in collecting, 
analyzing, and distributing information, you asked us to determine to 
what extent the Census Bureau has developed (1) effective policies, 
procedures, and processes for managing IT investments and system 
development; and (2) effective practices for acquiring and maintaining 
IT human capital skills. 

To meet these objectives, we reviewed the bureau's policies and 
procedures related to IT investment management, system development, 
and human capital management. We also interviewed bureau officials 
responsible for providing oversight in these areas to learn how the 
bureau is implementing changes to those management processes. For more 
information on our scope and methodology, see appendix I. 

We conducted this performance audit from February 2012 through 
September 2012 in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform 
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a 
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a 
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. 

Background: 

The Census Bureau's mission is to collect and provide comprehensive 
data about the nation's people and economy. Core activities include 
conducting decennial, economic, and government censuses; conducting 
demographic and economic surveys; managing international demographic 
and socioeconomic databases; providing technical advisory services to 
foreign governments; and performing other activities such as producing 
official population estimates and projections. 

The Census Bureau is part of the Department of Commerce and is in the 
department's Economics and Statistics Administration, led by the Under 
Secretary for Economic Affairs. The Census Bureau is headed by a 
Director and is organized into directorates corresponding to key 
programmatic and administrative functions as depicted in figure 1. 

Figure 1: Organizational Chart of the Census Bureau: 

[Refer to PDF for image: Organizational Chart] 

Top level: 
Director; 
Deputy Director. 

Second level, reporting to Director: 
Policy Coordination Office; 
Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation: 
* Deputy Director; 
* Chief: 
- Investment Management; 
- Enterprise Risk Management; 
- Business Process Management. 
                                    
Third level, reporting to Director:                                
Associate Director for Communications; 
Associate Director for Administration and Chief Financial Officer; 
Associate Director for Information Technology and Chief Information 
Officer: 
* Chief Technology Office; 
* Information Systems Support and Review Office; 
* Application Services Division; 
* Office of Information Security; 
* Local Area Network Technology Support Office; 
* Computer Services Division; 
* Telecommunications Office; 
Associate Director for Field Operations; 
Associate Director for Economic Programs; 
Associate Director for Demographic Programs; 
Associate Director for 2020 Census: 
* American Community Survey Office; 
* 2020 Research and Planning Office; 
Associate Director for Decennial Census Programs; 
Associate Director for Research and Methodology. 

Source: GAO analysis based on Census documents. 

[End of figure] 

Role of IT at the Census Bureau: 

According to the bureau, while planning, taking, processing, and 
publishing the results of censuses and surveys still requires the work 
of thousands of people, advances over the years have been made in the 
speed of collection, analysis, and publication of data through the 
development of mechanical and electronic tools. For nearly 100 years, 
census data were tabulated by clerks who made tally marks or added 
columns of figures with a pen or a pencil. As the nation grew and 
there were more people, items, and characteristics to count, speedier 
tabulation methods had to be invented or the results of one census 
would not be processed before it was time for the next one. In 1880, 
the bureau used a "tabulating machine"--a wooden box in which a roll 
of paper was threaded past an opening where a clerk marked the tallies 
in various columns and then added up the marks when the roll was full--
that made tabulating at least twice as fast as the previous manual 
process. 

By 1950, mechanical tabulating improved; its speed had increased to 
2,000 items per minute. In 1951, the first large-scale electronic 
computer, UNIVAC I, was designed and built specifically for the Census 
Bureau. This machine was able to tabulate 4,000 items per minute. From 
1970 on, the bureau took advantage of new high-speed composers that 
converted the data on computer tape directly to words and numbers on 
off-set negative film used in publishing. Beginning in the mid-1980s, 
some statistics were made available on diskettes for use in 
microcomputers and users began to obtain statistics online. In the 
later 1980s, the bureau began testing CD-ROM (compact disk/read-only 
memory) laser disks as a medium for releasing data. 

The 2000 Census demonstrated probably the biggest leap forward in the 
use of technology for collecting and disseminating data. According to 
the bureau, its previous response scanning system (which dated to the 
1950s) was replaced with optical character recognition technology, 
allowing the bureau to design a respondent-friendly (instead of 
machine-friendly) questionnaire in which write-in responses could also 
be captured electronically. In addition, the bureau's previous online 
data system from the 1990s evolved into online data available through 
the Census Bureau's website.[Footnote 1] Further technological 
advances were made in the 2010 census through the use of handheld 
computers for certain parts of Census operations and integration of 
Global Positioning System information into Census Bureau maps. 
Although specific technical decisions for the 2020 Census remain to be 
made, both ongoing Census operations and the next decennial census 
will be highly reliant on the effective use of information technology. 

The 2010 Decennial Census cost $13 billion and was the costliest U.S. 
census in history. One reason for the high cost was the increased use 
of paper-based processing over what was originally intended due to 
performance issues with key IT systems, which increased the cost of 
the census by up to $3 billion. The total cost of the census was 56 
percent more than the $8.1 billion 2000 Decennial Census (in constant 
2010 dollars). Based on past trends, if the growth rate continues 
unchecked, the census could cost approximately $25 billion in 
2020.[Footnote 2] For 2020, the bureau intends to focus on several 
measures to reduce costs, including better use of IT, but still is 
planning to spend roughly $12 to $18 billion to conduct the census. 

To support its IT operations for all of its activities, including 
those related to decennial censuses, the Census Bureau reported that 
it plans to spend $384 million on major IT investments in fiscal year 
2012. Of this, $130 million is to be spent on systems managed by the 
IT Directorate and $254 million is to be spent on systems managed in 
other directorates. To support these efforts, a bureau official from 
the Human Resource Division reported that as of July 2012, the bureau 
employed 1,148 IT staff among its approximately 14,000 employees. 
[Footnote 3] IT staff are spread throughout the bureau: the IT 
Directorate has 256 staff, Economic Programs has 262 staff, the 
Decennial Census has 156 staff, Field Operations has 185 staff, and 
Demographic Programs has 123 staff. 

Overview of Investment Management and GAO's IT Investment Management 
Maturity Framework: 

GAO's Information Technology Investment Management (ITIM) framework 
can be used by agencies to improve their organizational processes and 
measure progress in attaining them.[Footnote 4] A central tenet of 
this framework is the select/control/evaluate model. Figure 2 
illustrates the central components of this model. 

Figure 2: Fundamental Phases of the IT Investment Approach: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Data flow: 

Select phase: 
* Screen; 
* Rank; 
* Choose. 

How do you know that you have selected the best projects?  

Control phase: 
* Monitor progress; 
* Take corrective actions. 

How are you ensuring that projects deliver benefits? 
      
Evaluate phase: 
* Conduct interviews; 
* Make adjustments; 
* Apply lessons learned. 

Are the systems delivering what you expected?  

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

During the select phase the organization (1) identifies and analyzes 
each project's risks and returns before committing significant funds 
to any project and (2) selects those IT projects that will best 
support its mission needs. This process should be repeated each time 
funds are allocated to projects, reselecting even ongoing investments 
as described below. 

During the control phase the organization ensures that, as projects 
develop and investment expenditures continue, the project continues to 
meet mission needs at the expected levels of cost and risk. If the 
project is not meeting expectations or if problems have arisen, steps 
are quickly taken to address the deficiencies. If mission needs have 
changed, the organization is able to adjust its objectives for the 
project and appropriately modify expected project outcomes. 

During the evaluate phase, actual versus expected results are compared 
after a project has been fully implemented. This is done to (1) assess 
the project's impact on mission performance, (2) identify any changes 
or modifications to the project that may be needed, and (3) revise the 
investment management process based on lessons learned. 

The ITIM framework consists of five progressive stages of maturity 
that an agency can achieve in its investment management capabilities. 
The maturity stages are cumulative; that is, in order to attain a 
higher stage, an agency must institutionalize all of the critical 
processes at the lower stages, in addition to the higher stage 
critical processes. 

The framework's five maturity stages (see figure 3) represent steps 
toward achieving stable and mature processes for managing IT 
investments. The successful attainment of each stage leads to 
improvement in the organization's ability to manage its investments. 
With the exception of the first stage, each maturity stage is composed 
of critical processes that must be implemented and institutionalized. 
These critical processes are further broken down into key practices 
that describe the types of activities that an organization should be 
performing to successfully implement each critical process. It is not 
unusual for an organization to be performing key practices from more 
than one maturity stage at the same time. However, our research shows 
that agency efforts to improve investment management capabilities 
should focus on implementing all the lower-stage practices before 
addressing the higher-stage practices. 

Figure 3: The Five Information Technology Investment Management Stages 
of Maturity with Critical Processes: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Maturity stage: Stage 1: Creating investment awareness; 
Critical processes: 
* IT spending without disciplined investment processes. 

Maturity stage: Stage 2: Building the investment foundation; 
Critical processes: 
* Instituting the investment board
* Meeting business needs; 
* Selecting an investment; 
* Providing investment oversight; 
* Capturing investment information. 

Maturity stage: Stage 3: Developing a complete investment portfolio; 
Critical processes: 
* Defining the portfolio criteria; 
* Creating the portfolio; 
* Evaluating the portfolio; 
* Conducting postimplementation reviews. 

Maturity stage: Stage 4: Improving the investment process; 
Critical processes: 
* Improving the portfolio's performance; 
* Managing the succession of information systems. 

Maturity stage: Stage 5: Leveraging IT for strategic outcomes; 
Critical processes: 
* Optimizing the investment process; 
* Using IT to drive strategic business change. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

Stage 2 critical processes lay the foundation by establishing 
successful, predictable, and repeatable investment control processes 
at the project level. Stage 3 is where the agency moves from project-
centric processes to portfolio-based processes and evaluates potential 
investments according to how well they support the agency's missions, 
strategies, and goals. Organizations implementing these Stage 2 and 3 
practices have in place selection, control, and evaluation processes 
that are consistent with the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996.[Footnote 5] 
Stages 4 and 5 require the use of evaluation techniques to 
continuously improve both investment processes and portfolios in order 
to achieve strategic outcomes. 

The ITIM framework can be used to assess the maturity of an agency's 
investment management processes and as a tool for organizational 
improvement. The overriding purpose of the framework is to encourage 
investment processes that promote business value and mission 
performance, reduce risk, and increase accountability and transparency 
in the decision-making process. We have used the framework in several 
of our evaluations and a number of agencies have adopted it.[Footnote 
6] These agencies have used ITIM for purposes ranging from self-
assessment to redesign of their IT investment management processes. 

Effective management of federal IT investments remains an ongoing 
challenge. In December 2010, the White House released a plan to reform 
federal IT management that includes greater attention to several of 
the management processes described in ITIM. The plan includes efforts 
to increase accountability for IT investments, strengthen IT program 
management, increase the authority of agency chief information 
officers, and strengthen the ability of agency investment review 
boards to oversee agency IT investments.[Footnote 7] 

System Development Methodologies: 

The decision to invest in IT often leads to the acquisition or 
development of IT systems. To manage that development, organizations 
often employ a system development methodology. There are several 
different methodologies that can be used to develop IT systems, which 
range from the traditional waterfall model to the spiral model and to 
iterative models such as the Agile model. 

* The waterfall model begins with requirements development and 
continues sequentially through other phases--design, build, and test--
using the output of one phase as the input to the next to develop a 
finished product at the end. This model allows the status of a 
development project to be easily identified and tracked based on the 
current phase of the project. 

* The spiral model uses a risk-based approach to incrementally build a 
system by cycling through the four development phases. Using this 
model, each spiral, or incremental cycle, typically starts by 
determining the development objectives and scope for the increment. 
Next, alternative solutions are evaluated and risk management 
techniques are employed to identify and reduce risks. Then, a product 
for the increment (such as a prototype) is developed. Finally, the 
product is evaluated to determine whether the increment's initial 
objectives have been met. 

* The Agile model focuses on short-duration, small-scope development 
phases that produce segments of a functional product. This model 
operates with similar phases to the traditional waterfall model--
requirements, design, build, and test--but uses a shorter development 
cycle to achieve multiple iterations in similar time frames. Recently, 
several agencies have tried Agile, as it calls for producing software 
in small, short increments. Shorter, more incremental approaches to IT 
development have been identified as having the potential to improve 
the way in which the federal government develops and implements IT. In 
a recent report, we identified 32 practices and approaches as 
effective for applying Agile software development methods to IT 
projects.[Footnote 8] Officials who have used Agile methods on federal 
projects generally agreed that these practices are effective. In 
addition, the Office of Management and Budget recently issued guidance 
that advocates the use of shorter delivery time frames,[Footnote 9] an 
approach consistent with Agile. See figure 4 for a comparison of the 
Agile and waterfall development methods. 

Figure 4: Agile Development Compared with Traditional Waterfall 
Development: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Agile iterations: 

1) Requirements, design, development, and testing: 
Working software. 

2) Requirements, design, development, and testing: 
Working software. 

3) Requirements, design, development, and testing: 
Working software. 

4) Requirements, design, development, and testing: 
Release; 
Working software. 

Waterfall phases: 

Requirements; 
Milestone. 

Design; 
Milestone. 

Development; 
Milestone. 

Test: 
Software delivered at end of process. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

According to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability 
Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Development, a noted reference 
for best practices in system life-cycle development processes, when 
establishing an organizational process, the organization should 
establish and maintain criteria and guidelines that can be tailored 
for a particular project based on the development model chosen, and 
other issues, such as customer needs, cost, schedule, and technical 
difficulty.[Footnote 10] 

Also according to SEI, within a given system development model, a 
number of specific development activities should be addressed. These 
include requirements development and requirements management. 
Requirements development includes activities such as identifying 
desirable functionality and quality attributes through an analysis of 
scenarios with relevant stakeholders; analyzing and qualifying 
functionality required by end users; and partitioning requirements 
into groups based on established criteria such as similar 
functionality to facilitate and focus the requirements analysis. 
Requirements management provides management of the business and system 
requirements, and identification of inconsistencies among requirements 
and the project's plans and work products. 

GAO and Office of Personnel Management Guidance Help Federal Agencies 
Strategically Manage Human Capital: 

A strategic approach to human capital management includes viewing 
personnel as assets whose value can be enhanced by investing in them. 
Such an approach enables an organization to use their people 
effectively and to determine how well they integrate human capital 
considerations into daily decision making and planning for mission 
results. It also helps organizations to remain aware of and be 
prepared for current and future needs as an organization, and ensure 
that personnel have the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to 
pursue the mission of the organization. 

In 2003, we identified a set of key practices for effective strategic 
human capital management, including workforce planning.[Footnote 11] 
These practices are based on our reports and testimonies, reviews of 
studies by leading workforce planning organizations, and interviews 
with officials from the Office of Personnel Management and other 
federal agencies. Strategic workforce planning addresses two critical 
needs: (1) aligning an organization's human capital program with its 
current and emerging mission and programmatic goals and (2) developing 
long-term strategies for acquiring, developing, and retaining staff to 
achieve programmatic goals. While agency approaches to workforce 
planning will vary, we and the Office of Personnel Management have 
identified key practices in effective strategic workforce planning, 
[Footnote 12] six of which are: 

* Align workforce planning with strategic planning and budget 
formulation. 

* Involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in 
developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce 
plan. 

* Identify the critical skills[Footnote 13] and competencies[Footnote 
14] that will be needed to achieve current and future programmatic 
results. 

* Develop strategies that are tailored to address gaps in number, 
deployment, and alignment of human capital approaches for enabling and 
sustaining the contributions of all critical skills and competencies. 

* Build the capability needed to address administrative, educational, 
and other requirements important to support workforce planning 
strategies. 

* Monitor and evaluate the agency's progress toward its human capital 
goals and the contribution that human capital results have made toward 
achieving programmatic results. 

Activities for Implementing New Organizational Governance Processes: 

We have previously reported on the challenges associated with 
implementing a new IT governance framework, such as the Census Bureau 
is trying to do.[Footnote 15] Implementing a new governance framework 
and system development methodology are challenging tasks that can be 
aided by having robust implementation plans. Such a plan is 
instrumental in helping agencies coordinate and guide improvement 
efforts. As we have previously reported, several steps are important 
for successfully implementing new organizational governance processes 
related to investment management and system development.[Footnote 16] 
For example, organizations should: 

* Have a commitment from agency leadership to putting the process in 
place. Buy-in of key stakeholders should be obtained to ensure that 
their perspectives are considered and to facilitate adoption. This 
includes obtaining top management support and creating forums for 
involving business representatives. 

* Select an implementation team and develop a detailed implementation 
plan that lays out a roadmap for implementing the new process. An 
effective implementation team should include key stakeholders from 
both business and IT components. An implementation plan should build 
on existing strengths and weaknesses; specify measurable goals, 
objectives, and milestones; specify needed resources; assign 
responsibility and accountability for accomplishing tasks; and be 
approved by senior-level management. On the other end, measures to 
assess progress in meeting the objectives of the implementation 
efforts should be developed and should include lessons learned. 

* Perform pilot testing of the new process to evaluate the process and 
identify potential problems. Pilot testing is an effective--and 
usually necessary--tool for moving the agency successfully to full 
implementation. Pilot testing allows the agency to (1) evaluate the 
soundness of the proposed process in actual practice, (2) identify and 
correct problems with the new design, and (3) refine performance 
measures. Also, successful pilot testing will help strengthen support 
for full-scale implementation from employees, outside stakeholders, 
Congress, and the public, and help secure the funding needed for a 
smooth rollout. 

* Develop a formal evaluation process to determine the effectiveness 
of the new process in meeting the agency's goals. The team should 
develop a formal evaluation process to determine the efficiency and 
effectiveness of the new process, both during pilot tests and full 
implementation, in meeting the agency's performance goals. The process 
should also allow the agency to pinpoint trouble spots, so that 
corrective actions can be developed quickly. 

Prior GAO and Inspector General Reports Identified Management 
Challenges: 

Our prior work has identified the importance of having sound 
management processes in place to help the bureau as it manages 
multimillion dollar investments needed for its decennial census. For 
the last decennial, we issued multiple reports and testimonies from 
2005 through 2010 on weaknesses in the Census Bureau's management and 
testing of key 2010 Decennial Census IT systems. For example, in June 
2005, we found that while the Census Bureau had initiated key 
practices in areas such as providing investment oversight, project 
planning, requirements management, and risk management, they were not 
fully and consistently performed across the bureau.[Footnote 17] 
Accordingly, we made recommendations to the Census Bureau to develop 
procedures to ensure consistent investment management and decision-
making practices and to institutionalize a process improvement 
initiative, such as the CMMI framework, to strengthen bureau-wide 
system development and management processes. We noted that unless 
these recommendations were implemented, the bureau would face 
increased risk that cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance 
shortfalls would occur and it would not be able to effectively manage 
its multimillion dollar investments in IT. 

As development of the IT systems progressed, these problems were 
realized. In 2007, we reviewed the status of four key IT acquisitions 
needed for the 2010 Decennial Census.[Footnote 18] The bureau was 
still in the process of addressing our 2005 recommendations and our 
review found that there were increases in cost estimates and projected 
cost overruns of at least $51 million for the Field Data Collection 
Automation program[Footnote 19] due to changes in requirements. There 
were also schedule slippages with two other projects. Furthermore, 
these four projects were not consistently implementing key risk 
management practices. We concluded that unless the bureau addressed 
our recommendations to strengthen system testing and risk management 
activities, there would be an increased probability that decennial 
systems would not be delivered on schedule and within budget or 
perform as expected. 

Subsequently, in March 2008, we added the 2010 Decennial Census to our 
list of high-risk programs in part because of long-standing weaknesses 
in the Census Bureau's IT acquisition and contract management 
function, difficulties in developing reliable life-cycle cost 
estimates, and key operations that were not tested under operational 
conditions.[Footnote 20] We also testified on significant risks facing 
the 2010 census. In particular, we testified in March 2008 that the 
Field Data Collection Automation program was experiencing significant 
problems, including schedule delays and cost increases from changes in 
requirements, which required additional work and staffing.[Footnote 
21] In April 2008, the Census Bureau dropped the use of handheld 
devices developed as part of this program for nonresponse follow-up 
and reverted to a paper-based operation, requiring the development of 
a Paper-Based Operations Control System to manage the operation. 
Dropping the use of handhelds for nonresponse follow-up and replacing 
it with the paper-based system increased the cost of the 2010 
Decennial Census by up to $3 billion. 

In March 2009, we reported that the bureau continued to face a number 
of problems related to testing of key IT systems, such as the Paper-
Based Operations Control Systems, that included weaknesses in test 
plans and schedules, and a lack of executive-level oversight and 
guidance.[Footnote 22] We recommended that the bureau complete key 
system-testing activities and improve testing oversight and guidance 
or the Census Bureau would face the risk that systems were not 
thoroughly tested and or would perform as planned. Later that year, we 
reported in November 2009 that the bureau had not finalized detailed 
requirements for releases of the Paper-Based Operations Control 
System, which put the system at risk for cost increases, schedule 
delays, or performance shortfalls.[Footnote 23] Although the bureau 
worked aggressively to improve the Paper-Based Operations Control 
System, we reported in December 2010 that the system had experienced 
significant issues when it was put in operation.[Footnote 24] The 
bureau attributed these issues, in part, due to a compressed 
development and testing schedule, as well as inadequate performance 
and interface testing. 

At a cost of about $13 billion, 2010 was the costliest decennial 
census in history. While the 2010 census was removed from GAO's high-
risk list in February 2011, we reported in April 2011 that the bureau 
needed to continue to improve key practices for managing IT and 
strengthen its ability to develop reliable life-cycle cost estimates. 
[Footnote 25] 

More recently, in May 2012, we reported on the Census Bureau's early 
planning efforts for the 2020 census.[Footnote 26] We noted that the 
bureau's early planning and preparation efforts were consistent with 
most leading practices in each of the three management areas we 
reviewed: organizational transformation, long-term project planning, 
and strategic workforce planning, but we did identify opportunities 
for improvement.[Footnote 27] 

In addition, the Department of Commerce Office of the Inspector 
General recently identified several management challenges the Census 
Bureau faces as it prepares for the 2020 Decennial Census.[Footnote 
28] In June 2011, the Office of the Inspector General noted that the 
bureau needed to implement improved project planning and management 
techniques early in the decade to address the weaknesses in project 
management, cost estimation, and risk management. Officials from the 
Census Bureau stated that those recommendations were consistent with 
their current plans.[Footnote 29] 

Census Bureau Has Begun to Improve Its Investment Management and 
System Development Processes, but Has Not Finalized Plans for 
Implementation: 

The Census Bureau has drafted a new investment management plan, system 
development methodology, and requirements development and management 
processes to improve its ability to manage IT investments and system 
development and to address our prior recommendations. While the 
bureau's investment plan adapts key practices outlined in the ITIM 
framework, additional work is needed to develop guidelines such as 
when investment review boards should escalate investments with cost or 
schedule variances and when managers should provide updated investment 
information to the enterprise portfolio management tool. In addition, 
while the system development methodology lays out a foundation for 
development activities at the Census Bureau, it lacks guidance on 
tailoring the methodology to development models other than the 
traditional waterfall model. Furthermore, while the bureau has 
developed new draft requirements development and management processes 
for system development, it has not established a consistent process 
bureau-wide as we recommended in 2005. Finally, the bureau has not 
finalized plans for implementing these processes across the bureau or 
for ensuring they are in place for managing investments and developing 
systems necessary for the 2020 Decennial Census to help avoid a repeat 
of the cost and performance issues that occurred during the 2010 
Decennial Census. 

Census Bureau Has Not Finalized Its Investment Management Plan: 

The bureau has developed a new investment management plan, called the 
Enterprise Investment Management Plan, which is to apply to all 
investments, including IT investments. The draft plan outlines a 
portfolio management process that is to operate in two interdependent 
cycles, one to align current and planned investments to ensure the 
right investments are selected to support the bureau's mission, and 
one to monitor the development, deployment, and operation of approved 
investments in order to ensure new projects are developed as planned 
and ongoing systems are regularly evaluated for their impact on and 
relevancy to the bureau's mission. 

The plan outlines key investment management roles and responsibilities 
for various groups within the bureau. The groups include the: 

* Operating Committee, which is comprised of the bureau's senior 
executive team, including the Deputy Director, who chairs the 
committee, and associate directors for all nine of the bureau's 
directorates, one of whom is also the Chief Information Officer of the 
bureau. The Operating Committee has ultimate responsibility for 
directing the bureau's resource allocations and overseeing program 
performance. It also has overall responsibility for all IT investments 
costing more than $10 million that are high priority and medium or 
high priority investments that cost more than $50 million. 

* Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation, which is to manage 
the bureau's enterprise investment portfolio, review business cases 
for major investments and all other projects and portfolio investments 
within the bureau, regardless of cost or priority, and track project, 
program, and portfolio performance information. The office began 
operating in January 2011. 

* Directorate, division, and program-level investment review boards, 
which are to assess, review, and prioritize all existing and proposed 
investments at the appropriate directorate, division, or program 
level, and escalate investment issues to a higher-level board when 
required. Directorate-level review boards have overall responsibility 
for investments that are high priority and cost less than $10 million, 
medium-priority investments between $10 million and $50 million, and 
low-priority investments costing more than $50 million. Division and 
program-level boards have responsibility for medium-priority 
investments of less than $10 million and low-priority investments that 
cost less than $50 million. 

As shown in the following table, the bureau's new investment 
management plan is consistent with key practices outlined in the ITIM 
framework for Stage 2, including having documented policies and 
procedures in place for identifying IT projects that support business 
needs and selecting investments for funding. However, other policies 
within the plan only partially address the ITIM framework. In 
particular, the plan does not include guidelines for the membership of 
investment review boards, the frequency of board meetings, and the 
thresholds for escalating issues to higher-level boards, as these 
decisions are left up to individual directorates to determine. Table 1 
summarizes our assessment of the policies contained in the bureau's 
draft plan against relevant practices in Stage 2 of the ITIM framework. 

Table 1: Assessment of Census Bureau's Enterprise Investment 
Management Plan against the ITIM Framework: 

Practice category: Instituting investment board operations; 
Specific practice: A process for creating and defining the membership, 
guiding policies, operations, roles, responsibilities, and authorities 
of one or more investment review boards is established; 
Included in policy? Partially; 
Summary of assessment: An investment board, the Operating Committee, 
has been established and responsibilities and authorities have been 
outlined in the draft plan. In addition, the plan calls for the 
creation of investment review boards at the directorate level as well 
as at the division and program levels. However, the membership of 
these boards and the frequency of meetings are not specified in the 
plan. According to the Chief of the Office of Risk Management and 
Program Evaluation, these decisions will be left up to the individual 
directorates to decide. However, by doing so, the bureau may not be 
able to ensure there is consistency in individual review board 
operations when decisions are made regarding investments. 

Practice category: Meeting business needs; 
Specific practice: Documented policies and procedures for identifying 
IT projects or systems that support the organization's ongoing and 
future business needs are established. A business mission with stated 
goals and objectives is also documented; 
Included in policy? Yes; 
Summary of assessment: The bureau's draft plan outlines the process 
for identifying IT projects that support business needs and mission. 
The bureau's business mission with stated goals and objectives is 
documented in the U.S. Census Bureau Strategic Plan FY2007-2012. 

Practice category: Selecting an investment; 
Specific practice: Policies and procedures for selecting new IT 
investments as well as reselecting ongoing investments have been 
developed, which also include integrating funding as part of the 
process; 
Included in policy? Yes; 
Summary of assessment: The draft plan describes processes for the 
concurrent review of proposals by executives, the use of predefined 
criteria to analyze these proposals, and the process by which 
executives choose to fund some proposals and not others. 

Practice category: Providing investment oversight; 
Specific practice: Policies and procedures are documented for 
management oversight of IT projects and systems; 
Included in policy? Partially; 
Summary of assessment: The draft plan describes the Operating 
Committee, which serves as the manager of the bureau's enterprise 
portfolio and has ultimate responsibility for directing the Census 
Bureau's resource allocation and overseeing program performance. The 
Operating Committee currently reviews investments on a yearly basis. 
However, the management of most program components in the portfolio is 
the responsibility of the individual program owners. In addition, 
while the plan indicates that issues with investments will be 
escalated from the directorate's investment review board to the 
Operating Committee when there are cost, risk, schedule, or impact 
issues, no consistent criteria or thresholds have been established for 
escalation. The Chief of the Office of Risk Management and Program 
Evaluation stated that individual boards will be responsible for 
determining these thresholds. However, by doing so, the bureau may not 
be able to ensure that issues with specific investments are 
consistently reported to higher-level boards. 

Practice category: Capturing investment information; 
Specific practice: Policies and procedures for identifying and 
collecting information about IT projects to support the investment 
management process are documented; 
Included in policy? Partially; 
Summary of assessment: The plan includes information on the use of an 
enterprise portfolio management tool, which will consolidate 
investment information from all directorates into one centralized 
database. According to the Chief of the Office of Risk Management and 
Program Evaluation, individual directorates will be able to use other 
applications to manage their projects, but they will be required to 
extract information from their applications and provide it to the 
enterprise portfolio management tool central database. Census Bureau 
officials said that financial information in the enterprise portfolio 
management tool will be updated on a monthly basis, but the bureau has 
not set a time frame for when project managers should provide periodic 
updates to the tool, or provided dates for when this would be done. 

Source: GAO analysis of Census Bureau documentation and interviews 
with bureau officials. 

Note: Full implementation of a practice in the ITIM framework requires 
that a practice be stated in a policy and also be in use. This table 
only assesses whether the practice is stated in the bureau's policy. 

[End of table] 

In addition to lacking key guidelines for investment review board 
operations and the enterprise portfolio management tool, the plan is 
still a draft. The Chief of the Office of Risk Management and Program 
Evaluation stated that the plan would be finalized in late September 
2012. According to the official, it has taken the bureau time to 
finalize the plan due to its review process with stakeholders, which 
included holding desktop exercises with key staff in various 
directorates to walk through the new governance processes and obtain 
feedback, and the naming of a new Deputy Director for the bureau. 

While development of a draft investment management plan is a useful 
first step toward more rigorous investment management, until the 
Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation establishes 
guidelines for the frequency and membership of the investment review 
boards, thresholds for escalating cost or schedule variance issues, 
and time frames for project managers to make periodic updates of 
investment information in its enterprise portfolio management tool, 
the bureau is likely to face inconsistent application of its 
investment management plan. 

Census Bureau Has Created a New System Development Methodology, but It 
Does Not Address Modifications Needed for Newer Models of Software 
Development: 

In February 2012, the bureau's IT and 2020 Census Directorates, with 
the assistance of a contractor, developed a new system development 
life-cycle methodology to improve the bureau's ability to develop IT 
systems and to address our prior 2005 recommendation to strengthen 
bureau-wide system development and management processes.[Footnote 30] 
The main elements of the bureau's new methodology include: 

* Ten defined life-cycle phases, including initiation, concept 
development, planning, requirements analysis, design, development, 
integration and test, deployment, operations and maintenance, and 
disposition, along with corresponding activities and work products 
that must be completed. 

* Five development process models, including waterfall, prototyping, 
incremental, iterative,[Footnote 31] and spiral, that project managers 
can use when developing new systems or modifying or adding 
functionality to existing systems. 

* A tool that helps project managers choose the appropriate 
development process model. 

* An appendix that helps project managers identify the work products 
to complete for each phase of the life-cycle based on the project's 
life-cycle cost and priority. 

Although the methodology lays out a foundation for system development 
activities at the bureau, it has critical gaps. In particular, SEI's 
CMMI for Development, a noted reference for best practices in system 
life-cycle development processes, recommends that an organization 
establish and maintain criteria and guidelines that can be tailored to 
suit changing situations.[Footnote 32] However, the bureau's 
methodology is based on a waterfall development model and work 
products identified in the guide are only tied to categories of 
projects assigned according to each project's life-cycle cost and 
priority. The guide does not have guidance on how to adapt the process 
and related work products to alternate development models. 
Specifically, since other life-cycle models do not follow the 
waterfall model in terms of phases, types of activities, and work 
products for each phase, the methodology should explain how it can be 
adapted to alternate software development models, including 
identifying mandatory work products for other non-waterfall 
development models and phases. For example, one project manager for a 
pilot project of the new guide that is using an iterative process 
development model confirmed that he had difficulty in using the guide 
and had to deviate from it as he was developing work products. 

The current Chief Information Officer stated that the bureau's process 
does not currently include alternate development models because the 
methodology is in its first iteration and he wanted to evaluate the 
new process with pilots before making changes or additions. Census 
Bureau officials also acknowledged that the system development life-
cycle methodology will not be as useful with other life-cycle models, 
such as an iterative model, and that they intend to develop additional 
guidance for non-waterfall models. However, they could not provide 
dates for when development of this guidance would be started or 
finalized. 

Both private and public-sector organizations are making increasing use 
of non-waterfall development models as a means of reducing development 
times and reducing risk for software projects.[Footnote 33] Until the 
bureau specifies how to adapt the new system development life-cycle 
development methodology to non-waterfall models, the methodology will 
be of limited use for managing system development and acquisition 
efforts. 

Both IT and 2020 Census Directorates Have Independently Drafted New 
Requirements Development and Management Processes, but Bureau-wide 
Approach Is Needed: 

SEI states that a disciplined process for developing and managing 
requirements can help reduce the risks of developing or acquiring a 
system. The practices underlying requirements development and 
management include eliciting, documenting, verifying and validating, 
and managing requirements through a system's life cycle. This set of 
activities translates customer needs from statements of high-level 
business requirements into validated, testable system requirements. A 
well-defined and managed requirements baseline can, in addition, 
improve understanding among stakeholders and increase stakeholder buy-
in and acceptance of the resulting system. 

Both the IT Directorate and the 2020 Census Directorate have drafted 
new requirements development and management processes, though only the 
IT Directorate's guidance has been finalized. In particular, the IT 
Directorate has developed a new process, the Application Services 
Division's Requirements Elicitation, Analysis, and Documentation 
Process, for working with customers to develop requirements for 
projects during the requirements phase. This includes activities for 
creating a requirements work plan, identifying high-level and detailed 
project requirements, as well as assessing the feasibility and 
managing the risks associated with these requirements. The 2020 Census 
Directorate has developed a draft Requirements Engineering Management 
Plan that establishes processes for developing both enterprise-level 
mission requirements for the 2020 Decennial Census and specific 
project-level business, capability, and solution requirements. The 
process includes four stages for developing and managing these sets of 
requirements including discovery, analysis, agreement, and solution 
acceptance, and outlines roles and responsibilities for stakeholders. 

While both the IT and 2020 Census Directorates have established new 
requirements development and management processes, which are to be 
used in the requirements analysis phase of the bureau's new system 
development methodology, the bureau has not established a consistent 
process bureau-wide as we have previously recommended. In 2005 we 
found that individual project teams within the bureau had not 
consistently implemented key practices for requirements management and 
we recommended that a consistent approach be established bureau-wide. 
These weaknesses in the bureau's processes for requirements management 
were not sufficiently addressed and we reported in 2007, 2008, and 
2009 that these issues contributed to increases in life-cycle cost 
estimates and cost overruns of hundreds of millions of dollars for key 
investments necessary for the 2010 Decennial Census.[Footnote 34] 
Furthermore, the bureau had developed a handheld device for the 2010 
census that did not operate as intended because of the lack of a 
robust requirements process. Instead, the bureau had to rely on a 
paper-based system to replace the handheld devices for key aspects of 
the census, which increased the cost of the 2010 census by up to $3 
billion. 

Nevertheless, both the Chief Information Officer, who heads the IT 
Directorate and the Associate Director of the 2020 Census Directorate, 
as well as the Chief of the Office of Risk Management and Program 
Evaluation, stated that there are no plans to standardize a 
requirements development and management process across the bureau. 
Currently, for future investments, bureau officials will decide which 
directorate requirements process to use, depending on which 
directorate has responsibility for developing the system. For example, 
the 2020 Census and IT Directorates are currently working together to 
develop a new electronic document management system[Footnote 35] 
intended for the 2020 Decennial Census. For this project, only the IT 
Directorate's requirements process is being used because the IT 
Directorate has overall responsibility for developing the system. 

While the 2020 Census and IT Directorate's processes both contain 
useful elements of a requirements management process, neither process 
is sufficient by itself. Specifically, the IT Directorate has guidance 
for eliciting, developing, and documenting requirements for projects, 
but although the 2020 Directorate's process mentions project 
requirements, the guidance does not provide clear steps for developing 
these requirements. In contrast, the 2020 Census Directorate's 
guidance provides clear steps for developing strategic mission and 
business requirements, but the IT Directorate's guidance does not. 
Moreover, each of these guidance documents lacks information on how 
these requirements processes will be integrated into the bureau's new 
system development life-cycle methodology. Bureau officials stated 
that they hope to integrate processes from the two directorates 
sometime in the future in preparation for the 2020 Decennial Census, 
but did not specify when this would occur. 

By utilizing overlapping requirements development and management 
processes without a specified time frame for when these processes will 
be integrated, the bureau is increasing the risk that IT investments, 
particularly those intended for the 2020 Decennial Census, will face 
cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance shortfalls. Until 
the bureau establishes and implements a consistent requirements 
development and management process across the bureau that has clear 
guidance for developing requirements at the strategic mission, 
business, and project levels and is integrated with its new system 
development methodology, it will not have assurance that requirements 
for IT systems intended for the 2020 Decennial Census will be 
effectively developed or managed. 

Census Bureau Has Not Finalized Plans for Implementing Investment 
Management and System Development Processes across the Bureau: 

While the bureau has drafted a new investment management plan, and 
system development methodology, including requirements development and 
management processes, key activities for effectively implementing 
these processes across the bureau remain to be undertaken. In 
particular, while the bureau's leadership has made a commitment to 
putting the new investment plan in place across the bureau, no 
specific plans have been made to implement the system methodology 
bureau-wide. In addition, detailed implementation plans for putting 
these processes in place, including having sufficient pilot testing 
and formal evaluations to determine the effectiveness of the new 
processes remain to be developed. Table 2 shows our assessment of the 
bureau's implementation efforts based on our prior work on 
implementing new processes within an organization.[Footnote 36] 

Table 2: Census Bureau's Implementation of the Investment Management 
Plan and System Development Methodology: 

Key activity: Agency leadership makes commitment to putting the 
process in place; 
Assessment: Partially implemented; 
Summary of assessment: Agency leadership has played a key role in 
establishing the new investment management structure and the Office of 
Risk Management and Program Evaluation. The Operating Committee, 
composed of senior executive leadership in the bureau, has been 
established and is chaired by the Deputy Director of the bureau. It 
has begun meeting on a yearly basis to review IT investments. However, 
no time frames for implementing the investment management plan across 
the bureau have been established. 
The Chief Information Officer, who heads the IT Directorate, and the 
Associate Director of the 2020 Census Directorate have spearheaded the 
initiative to create a new system development methodology and have 
directed their staffs to work to implement the methodology within 
their directorates. However, the bureau has not made specific plans to 
implement the methodology across the bureau. The Chief Information 
Officer stated that because of the culture change associated with 
establishing such a standardized process at the bureau, it was 
important to take a gradual approach to implementation. Regarding 
requirements management, both directorates have developed new 
processes and have indicated that these processes will be integrated 
sometime in the future; however they did not specify when this would 
occur. 

Key activity: A detailed implementation plan is developed that lays 
out a road map for implementing the new process; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: The Chief of the Office of Risk Management and 
Program Evaluation originally stated that the bureau intended to 
finalize its plan in August 2012. However, the office did not provide 
a draft plan or milestones for us to review. As of August 2012, the 
chief stated that the implementation plan would not be finalized and 
approved until September 2012. In addition, the office has not 
finalized plans for implementing the enterprise portfolio management 
tool across the bureau. 
The Chief Information Officer delegated ownership of the system 
methodology, including the requirements development and management 
processes, to the Application Services Division within the IT 
Directorate and established a project team to coordinate 
implementation. The Chief of the Application Services Division stated 
that his division was beginning to develop a formal implementation 
plan for the system development methodology, but did not provide any 
more specific information. 

Key activity: Pilot testing of the new process is performed to 
evaluate the process and identify potential problems; 
Assessment: Partially implemented; 
Summary of assessment: The Office of Risk Management and Program 
Evaluation has not finalized plans for pilot testing the new 
investment management process or the enterprise investment management 
tool, though two directorates have been tentatively identified to help 
pilot these efforts. 
The bureau is currently piloting the new system development 
methodology and using the IT Directorate's requirements process on two 
projects managed by the IT Directorate: the Electronic Document 
Management System and an effort to upgrade and consolidate Linux 
servers within the bureau. However, one of the two pilots--the Linux 
project--is of limited usefulness in testing the system development 
life cycle because it is not a system development effort. In addition, 
the second pilot--the Electronic Document Management System--is a 
limited system development effort that is intended to take 3 months. 
Although both the Chief Information Officer, who heads the IT 
Directorate, and the Associate Director of the 2020 Census Directorate 
stated that they intend to use the system development life-cycle 
methodology in the future, there are no specific plans for additional 
pilots. 

Key activity: A formal evaluation process is developed to determine 
the effectiveness of the new process in meeting the agency's goals; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: The Office of Risk Management and Program 
Evaluation has not identified a formal evaluation process for 
evaluating the pilots or the implementation of the new investment 
management governance structure. 
The project manager for the system development life-cycle methodology 
has initiated weekly meetings to obtain feedback on the use of the 
methodology for the pilots. However, an evaluation process has not yet 
been established. 

Source: GAO analysis of Census Bureau documentation and interviews 
with bureau officials. 

[End of table] 

With respect to the investment management plan, the Chief of the 
Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation said that the bureau 
had not finalized a plan for implementing the new investment 
management structure because the office was still in the process of 
incorporating feedback on the plan. For the system development 
methodology, the Chief Information Officer stated that an 
implementation plan had not been finalized because more work was 
needed to refine the methodology. The methodology would be implemented 
across the bureau once it had been refined and all issues were 
resolved. 

As we noted in 2005, the bureau's lack of a consistent bureau-wide 
approach for IT investment management contributed to the bureau not 
effectively and efficiently managing multimillion dollar investments, 
including taking consistent and appropriate action when cost, 
schedule, or performance expectations were not being met. In addition, 
a lack of a consistent approach for system development and management, 
including requirements development and management, led to project 
teams managing systems in an ad hoc manner and increased the risk that 
cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance shortfalls would, 
and did, occur, as we reported in 2007 and 2009.[Footnote 37] 

According to the bureau's timeline for 2020 Decennial Census planning, 
it will begin operational development and system testing starting in 
fiscal year 2015. While the exact design for 2020 information systems 
is not yet defined, it is likely to be complex, involve multiple 
directorates, and use both contractors and bureau staff based on the 
prior decennial census and the bureau's initial plans for 2020. 

Unless the investment management plan and system development life-
cycle methodology, including a requirements development and management 
process, are fully implemented by this time, the Census Bureau will 
face increased risk that similar challenges that occurred in the 2010 
Decennial Census will occur for the 2020 Decennial Census's 
multimillion dollar investments. In addition, although only full 
implementation can identify all the potential problems with the new 
investment management plan and system methodology, until the bureau 
conducts additional pilot testing, including various software 
development models and projects of the scope and complexity of those 
needed for the 2020 Decennial Census, there is increased risk of not 
identifying potential problems with the investment management plan and 
system development life-cycle methodology. 

Moreover, while feedback sessions on issues with implementing 
processes can be useful, until the Office of Risk Management and 
Program Evaluation and the Application Services Division establish a 
documented evaluation process to assess the effectiveness of the new 
processes, the bureau will lack assurance as to whether these 
processes are effective in meeting the bureau's goals. Lastly, while 
any significant change cannot be accomplished overnight, clear 
leadership and deadlines are essential to implement changes. Failure 
to address these issues in a timely manner puts the bureau at risk of 
the same cost overrun, schedule slippage, and performance shortfall 
issues that affected the previous census. 

Census Bureau Does Not Have Bureau-wide Workforce Planning Practices 
for IT Staff: 

Over the past year, the Census Bureau has taken limited steps to 
develop IT human capital practices, including identifying critical IT 
occupations and select competencies and conducting an inventory of 
these competencies among its IT staff in June 2011. However, many key 
practices remain to be implemented. In particular, the Census Bureau 
has not developed a bureau-wide IT workforce plan, identified gaps in 
mission-critical IT occupations, skills, and competencies, or 
developed strategies to address gaps. Table 3 summarizes our 
assessment of the bureau's efforts against key principles for 
effective workforce planning.[Footnote 38] 

Table 3: Census Bureau's IT Workforce Planning Practices: 

Principle: Align workforce planning with strategic planning and budget 
formulation; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: According to bureau officials, the bureau has 
not developed a bureau-wide IT workforce plan since at least 2009[A] 
and only one directorate, the IT Directorate, has created an IT 
workforce plan. According to bureau officials, each directorate is 
responsible for establishing its own workforce planning, including IT 
planning for its staff, as IT staff are distributed across the bureau. 
According to the Chief of the Human Resources Division, the bureau has 
provided no guidance to the directorates on preparing workforce plans 
or established any efforts to coordinate workforce plans between them. 

Principle: Involve top management, employees and other stakeholders in 
developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce 
plan; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: The bureau has not involved top management or 
key stakeholders in strategic IT workforce planning because each 
directorate is responsible for developing their own plans. Although 
the IT Directorate has established a draft IT workforce plan, bureau 
officials from the IT Directorate stated there was limited involvement 
from management and employees in developing this draft plan due to 
budget constraints and lack of sufficient staff resources. 

Principle: Identify critical occupations, skills, and competencies and 
analyze workforce gaps; 
Assessment: Partially implemented; 
Summary of assessment: In June 2011, the bureau conducted a pilot 
assessment of the competencies of its IT workforce across the bureau, 
with the intent of conducting a bureau-wide competency inventory 
assessment of all employees in fall 2012. As part of this pilot 
effort, the Human Resources Division identified the critical IT 
occupations needed, but did not identify critical IT skills and only 
partially identified critical IT competencies. In addition, the bureau 
has not yet used this information to conduct an IT skills gap analysis. 

Principle: Develop strategies tailored to address workforce gaps and 
human capital conditions in critical skills and competencies that need 
attention; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: Work has not been started in this area for the 
bureau's IT workforce because a gap analysis for critical occupations, 
skills, and competencies has not been performed. The bureau does have 
existing strategies for other staff that could be used to address gaps 
for IT staff once the gaps are identified. 

Principle: Build capacity to address workforce strategies; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: Work has not been started in this area for the 
bureau's IT workforce because the bureau has not completed a gap 
analysis of critical IT occupations, skills, and competencies. 

Principle: Monitor and evaluate progress toward achieving workforce 
planning and strategic goals; 
Assessment: Not implemented; 
Summary of assessment: The bureau has not yet developed an IT 
workforce plan, and so is not able to monitor and evaluate progress in 
addressing its workforce planning and strategic goals. 

Source: GAO analysis of Census Bureau documentation and interviews 
with bureau officials. 

[A] The bureau has developed a bureau-wide human capital management 
plan but it does not specifically address IT. 

[End of table] 

According to officials in the Human Resources Division, the bureau has 
not yet begun key workforce planning activities because it first needs 
to complete an initial bureau-wide competency assessment. In planning 
for this assessment, the bureau conducted a pilot assessment of IT 
competencies in June 2011. Officials stated that the pilot assessment 
provided several lessons that they intend to use for the bureau-wide 
competency assessment. For instance, while managers in the 
directorates with IT staff found that the information from the pilot 
assessment was useful, those managers were more interested in 
identifying the current skills of their IT staff than the competency 
information that was gathered. The bureau's Human Resources Division 
therefore collected additional information for managers in May 2012. 
The bureau is to conduct the bureau-wide competency assessment, 
including a reassessment of IT competencies, in late 2012. 

Once this assessment is completed, the bureau's directorates are to 
conduct additional workforce planning activities. For example, bureau 
officials stated that individual directorates plan to conduct gap 
analyses for mission-critical skills and competencies. According to 
the bureau's Human Resources Division, once the gap analysis is 
completed, the bureau is to begin refining existing strategies and its 
capacity to address workforce gaps. The bureau provided a document 
with high-level goals to incorporate results of its competency 
assessment into individual directorate workforce plans by July 2013. 
However, it did not provide time frames for when specific activities 
would be completed for its IT workforce, such as a gap analysis for 
occupations, skills, or competencies of IT staff, nor did it provide 
plans to integrate these activities bureau-wide. 

The Chief of the Human Resources Division stated that the Census 
Bureau has traditionally been decentralized in its IT workforce 
planning efforts because its IT staff is located in several 
directorates. The bureau has also faced budget constraints in 
conducting workforce planning specifically for its IT staff but had 
recently begun to undertake efforts in this area within the IT 
Directorate after a new division chief was hired. 

Effective IT workforce planning efforts are critical to ensuring the 
bureau has the appropriate workforce in place to achieve its mission 
and strategic goals, particularly in regards to the 2020 Decennial 
Census. While the bureau's Human Resources Division plans to undertake 
a thorough assessment of the competencies of its workforce this year, 
unless the division establishes a repeatable process for performing 
skills assessments and gap analysis that can be implemented in a 
timely manner, managers may not be able to make decisions to address 
any skills gaps in preparation for the 2020 Decennial Census. In 
addition, until the Human Resources Division establishes a process for 
directorates to coordinate on IT workforce planning in line with key 
principles for effective workforce planning, the bureau may not have 
sufficient assurance that it has the appropriate IT workforce needed 
for 2020 Decennial Census activities. 

Conclusions: 

While the Census Bureau has begun to make improvements to investment 
management and system development processes, including requirements 
development and management, more work remains to be done to refine 
these processes and implement them across the bureau. As we have 
previously reported, a lack of robust processes in these areas 
contributed to the cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance 
shortfalls in key IT investments that were needed for the 2010 
Decennial Census, which increased its cost by up to $3 billion. 
However, the bureau has not established key guidelines and thresholds 
within its investment management plan, nor has it developed guidance 
to tailor the bureau's new system development methodology to alternate 
development models, or established plans to implement these new 
processes across the bureau. Until the bureau takes action in these 
key areas, there is the risk that similar issues will arise for the 
2020 Decennial Census. 

Furthermore, having an IT workforce that has the appropriate mission-
critical skills and competencies will be necessary to help the bureau 
effectively develop and manage its multimillion dollar investments in 
information systems and technology. While the bureau has begun to 
improve its IT human capital practices including conducting an 
inventory of select IT competencies, many key workforce planning 
practices remain to be put in place, including conducting gap analyses 
and integrating IT workforce planning bureau-wide. Having effective IT 
workforce planning practices will help ensure the bureau can achieve 
its mission and strategic goals for the 2020 Decennial Census. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To strengthen and improve the bureau's new investment management, 
system development, and IT workforce management processes, we 
recommend that the Acting Secretary of Commerce direct the Under 
Secretary for Economic Affairs who oversees the Economics and 
Statistics Administration, as well as the Acting Director of the U.S. 
Census Bureau, take eight actions to address weaknesses in the 
following IT management areas: 

* Establish guidelines for the frequency and membership of bureau 
investment review boards and thresholds for these boards to escalate 
cost or schedule variance issues to higher-level boards. 

* Establish time frames for project managers to provide periodic 
updates of investment information in the enterprise investment 
management tool. 

* Adapt the bureau's new system development life-cycle methodology, 
including the mandatory work products, activities, and phases of the 
project, to the additional software development models beyond the 
waterfall model that are specified in the methodology. 

* Establish and implement a consistent requirements development and 
management process across the bureau that is integrated with its new 
system development life-cycle methodology and includes guidance for 
developing requirements at the strategic mission, business, and 
project levels. 

* Finalize a plan for implementing the Enterprise Investment 
Management Plan, including time frames for implementation by fiscal 
year 2015, pilot testing of the new process, and a documented 
evaluation process. 

* Establish a plan for implementing the new system development life-
cycle methodology, including requirements development and management 
processes, across the bureau, to include time frames for 
implementation by fiscal year 2015, additional pilots of the 
methodology prior to full implementation, and a documented evaluation 
process. 

* Establish a repeatable process for performing IT skills assessments 
and gap analysis that can be implemented in a timely manner. 

* Establish a process for directorates to coordinate on IT workforce 
planning, including: (1) aligning IT workforce planning with strategic 
planning and budget formulation; (2) involving appropriate 
stakeholders and staff from each directorate; (3) identifying critical 
occupations, skills, and competencies, and analyzing workforce gaps; 
(4) developing strategies to address IT workforce gaps; (5) building 
capacity to address workforce gaps; and (6) monitoring and evaluating 
IT workforce planning efforts across the bureau, and ensure this 
process is implemented across the bureau. 

Agency Comments: 

We received comments from the Acting Secretary of Commerce on a draft 
of this report. The comments are included in appendix II. In its 
comments, the department stated that the Census Bureau concurred with 
our eight recommendations and outlined steps it was taking to 
implement the recommendations. The bureau acknowledged that the 
Enterprise Investment Management Plan was in draft, but indicated it 
had deployed components of the plan, such as initiating governing 
boards in three directorates. The bureau also noted that its 
enterprise portfolio management tool had been placed into production 
in July and that the bureau was working to migrate to the new tool. 

Regarding the system development life-cycle methodology, the bureau 
stated that the methodology was one of several initiatives to improve 
the bureau's delivery of IT services. The bureau said that later 
iterations of the methodology would include more iterative models such 
as Agile that were applicable to its business needs. The bureau also 
indicated it was planning to include feedback from its pilot projects 
in the revised methodology and to provide additional guidance on 
required documentation. 

For its requirements management processes, the bureau stated it was 
planning to integrate the bureau's different requirements management 
processes and emphasized that joint commitment of the 2020 Decennial 
Census and IT Directorates was critical to the success of a 
requirements management process for the 2020 Decennial Census. 

The bureau also indicated that it has provided extensive training and 
education for its IT workforce even though it lacked an integrated 
plan based on best practices. The bureau plans to develop a workforce 
plan to incorporate strategies for hiring, developing, and contracting 
to meet its identified requirements. It noted, however, that this 
could be affected by potential budget cuts. The bureau stated its 
bureau-wide assessment and competency gap analysis would be completed 
by fall 2012. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Acting Secretary of 
Commerce, the Senior Advisor to the Acting Director and the Deputy 
Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, and interested congressional 
committees. The report also is available at no charge on GAO's website 
at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staffs have any questions on the matters discussed in 
this report, please contact me at (202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov. 
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who 
made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Signed by: 

David A. Powner: 
Director, Information Technology Management Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Our objectives were to evaluate the (1) effectiveness of the Census 
Bureau's policies, procedures, and processes for managing information 
technology (IT) investments and system development and (2) the Census 
Bureau's development of effective practices for acquiring and 
maintaining IT human capital skills. 

To address our first objective, we reviewed the effectiveness of 
policies and procedures in two areas--investment management and system 
development and management. We compared the bureau's new IT investment 
management policies and procedures in its draft Enterprise Investment 
Management Plan to the criteria for policies and procedures associated 
with maturity stage 2 of the Information Technology Investment 
Management (ITIM) framework.[Footnote 39] The ITIM framework consists 
of five progressive stages of maturity that an agency can achieve in 
its investment management capabilities. The maturity stages are 
cumulative; that is, in order to attain a higher stage, an agency must 
first institutionalize all of the critical processes at the lower 
stages. To determine whether the bureau satisfied the criteria for 
maturity stage 2 we compared the bureau's policies and procedures to 
the critical processes outlined in stage 2. We did not evaluate the 
bureau at maturity stage 1 because our prior review in 2005 determined 
that it had passed that stage.[Footnote 40] We did not evaluate the 
Census Bureau at maturity stages 3, 4, or 5 because our prior work has 
shown that an agency should focus on implementing all practices 
associated with a lower phase before addressing the higher-stage 
practices. We also interviewed officials from the Office of Risk 
Management and Program Evaluation regarding the development and 
implementation of the plan across the bureau. 

To assess the effectiveness of the bureau's processes for managing 
system development, including requirements development and management, 
we reviewed the bureau's System Development Life Cycle Users' Guide 
and project templates, Requirements Engineering Management Plan, and 
the Application Services Division's Requirements Elicitation, 
Analysis, and Documentation Process, and compared these documents with 
Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model 
Integration for Development criteria in two areas: establishing 
organizational processes, and requirements management and development. 
Although SEI specifies criteria in numerous areas, we focused on 
establishing organizational processes because the bureau's system 
development methodology is newly developed. We focused on requirements 
development and management because of the bureau's challenges in 
managing requirements for the 2010 Decennial Census. For each of the 
two areas, we analyzed bureau plans and procedures to determine if the 
practices described were consistent with those in the SEI criteria. In 
addition, we interviewed officials from the IT Directorate and 2020 
Census Directorate regarding development and implementation of the 
guide and the requirements management and development processes. 

To assess the Census Bureau's efforts to effectively implement these 
new investment management and system development processes across the 
bureau, we interviewed officials from the Office of Risk Management 
and Program Evaluation, IT Directorate, and 2020 Census Directorate 
regarding implementation efforts and reviewed related documentation, 
which we compared to our reported best practices for implementing new 
organizational governance processes.[Footnote 41] We evaluated whether 
these efforts satisfied each of the components of each key activity 
from the best practices and assigned ratings of "implemented", 
"partially implemented", or "not implemented" based on that 
assessment. A rating of "partially implemented" was given if the 
bureau's activities satisfied at least one component of the key 
activity. 

To address our second objective, we reviewed bureau workforce planning 
documents, including the Human Capital Management Plan (FY 2011-2016), 
IT Directorate's 2011-2016 Strategic Information Technology Plan, and 
the IT Directorate's workforce plan, and other bureau documentation 
related to the bureau's pilot workforce competency assessment and 
compared these to the six leading principles for workforce planning 
that we and the Office of Personnel Management have identified to 
determine whether the bureau's practices were consistent with these 
principles. We evaluated whether the bureau's activities satisfied 
each of the detailed practices in a principle and assigned ratings of 
"implemented", "partially implemented", or "not implemented" based on 
that assessment. A rating of "partially implemented" was assessed if 
the bureau's activities satisfied at least one of the detailed 
practices in the principle. We also interviewed officials from the 
Human Resources Division and IT Directorate to obtain information 
about the pilot assessment and the bureau's workforce planning efforts. 

We performed our work from March 2012 through September 2012 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Commerce: 

United States Department of Commerce: 
The Secretary of Commerce: 
Washington DC 20230: 

September 7, 2012: 

Mr. Robert Goldenkoff: 
Director: 
Strategic issues: 
U S. Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Goldenkoff: 

The U.S. Department of Commerce appreciates the opportunity to comment 
on the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) draft report titled 
Information Technology: Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key 
Management Practices (GAO-12-915). The Department's comments on this 
report are enclosed. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Rebecca M. Blank: 
Acting Secretary of Commerce: 

Enclosure: 

U.S. Census Bureau Comments on Draft Report Titled: Information 
Technology: Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices 
(GAO-12-915) September 2012: 

Overall Census Bureau Response Summary: 

We thank the Government Accounting Office (GAO) for allowing us to 
comment on the draft report; Information Technology: Census Bureau 
Needs to Implement Key Management Practices (GAO-12-915). The report 
generally recognizes the U.S. Census Bureau's efforts to improve 
investment management, systems development methodology, requirements 
development, and information technology (IT). workforce planning, and 
the Census Bureau concurs with the GAO's eight recommendations. In 
fact, we would like to highlight several initiatives already underway 
that illustrate the Census Bureau's commitment to ensuring the 
effective use of IT in collecting, analyzing, and distributing 
information. The following comments provide additional information on 
current activities that demonstrate our commitment to addressing the 
concerns discussed in the report. 

Investment Management: 

As the draft report acknowledges, the final Enterprise Investment 
Management Plan is still under review by the Deputy and Acting 
Director, and the detailed implementation plans have not yet been 
fully implemented. However, the Census Bureau has been able to deploy 
major components of the plan. The approval of the Investment Review 
Process Concept of Operations in January 2011 has allowed the Office 
of Risk Management and Program Evaluation (ORIVIPE) to work closely 
with representatives from across the Census Bureau to collaborate and 
develop the Enterprise Investment Management Plan. Having the 
framework, as provided in the Concept of Operations, enabled ORMPE to 
communicate the principles of portfolio management to its directorate 
stakeholders and to begin implementing core processes outlined in the 
plan prior to its completion. This approach allowed directorates to 
initiate governing boards to implement the selection, control, and 
evaluation processes outlined in the plan, while providing input that
ORMPE incorporated into the final Enterprise Investment Management 
Plan. 

The Economic Directorate was the first to implement a Portfolio 
Management Governing Board at the directorate level based upon the 
principles of the Enterprise Investment Management Plan. This 
implementation is serving as the lead effort in a directorate model. 
The process to select, control, and monitor projects within the 
Economic Directorate has been established, and the Board is operating 
as a functioning investment review board. Based upon the model within 
the Economic Directorate, the American Community Survey Office and the 
Research and Methodology Directorate implemented investment review 
boards to manage their investments. 

To facilitate an enterprise view of the investments within the Census 
Bureau portfolio and the work performed, the Census Bureau developed a 
standard taxonomy to describe the work performed by the Bureau in 
fulfilling its mission. The Census Bureau is integrating the taxonomy 
within a portfolio management tool. The Census Bureau selected 
Microsoft's Project Server Professional as the Bureau's portfolio 
management tool, and it went into production in July. ORMPE is working 
with program areas to migrate to the portfolio management tool and 
align project tasks with the taxonomy. Once fully implemented, this 
effort will integrate investments, the work performed, and the cost of 
the work performed across the enterprise. 

System Development Life Cycle: 

The Census Bureau's 2020 Census and IT Directorates jointly developed 
the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Its purpose, as stated in 
the draft report, is to improve the Census Bureau's ability to develop 
IT systems and, in direct response to a prior GAO recommendation, to 
strengthen Bureau-wide system development processes. We believe this 
is a major accomplishment and strong evidence of the Census Bureau's 
collective commitments to accomplish our mission responsibilities 
related to the delivery of an accurate and cost effective census in 
2020. 

The Census Bureau, under the authority and oversight of the Census 
Chief Information Officer (CIO), has several initiatives underway to 
realize the consistent and cost effective delivery of IT to support 
the many business needs of the Census Bureau, The Census Bureau CIO 
set out more than three years ago to essentially change the way the IT 
Directorate provides services to the Bureau, Major initiatives to 
improve the delivery of IT services to the Bureau and to efficiently
execute internal operations include the development of an enterprise 
architecture (EA); the development of an IT infrastructure roadmap; 
the implementation of a governance approach, which allows the Bureau 
to standardize commercial-off-the-shelf products and ensure all IT 
systems and system applications align to our EA; and the development 
and implementation of a standard approach to IT project and program 
management. 

This first iteration of the SDLC focuses on the waterfall model, as 
that is the model that a centralized IT organization typically follows 
in its development and sustainment of IT infrastructure and IT 
systems. The focus of the SDLC on the waterfall model is an extension 
of the intent of the Census CIO to organize and align the Census 
Bureau's central IT organization with best practices first, as 
illustrated in the previously mentioned initiatives under the 
oversight and authority of the Census CIO. The Census Bureau's 
strategy for the maturing of the SDLC as we prepare for the new IT 
systems development in support of the 2020 Census is to continue to 
refine the waterfall model and add other models to it, specifically 
more iterative models such as Agile, that are applicable to our 
business needs. 

Although we had not finalized plans during the audit, planning is 
underway to prepare for the next release of the SDLC to include 
feedback gained from the small pilots referenced in the draft report 
and to introduce a more iterative model for application development 
efforts in the 21)20 Census and IT Directorates. The next release will 
also address the need for documentation guidance to equip project and 
program teams in the 2020 Census and IT Directorates to navigate the 
SDLC in a systematic and standardized manner. We fully expect that, 
during implementation, this next iteration of the SDLC will include 
the piloting of more complex projects and programs through the 
methodologies set forth in the SDLC. 

Requirements Management Processes: 

We acknowledge the GAO's concerns regarding requirements management, 
and we believe the establishment of a standard requirements management 
plan and process at the Directorate level, specifically within the 
2020 Census Directorate and the IT Directorate, as pointed out in the 
draft report, is a major step toward avoiding budget and schedule 
overruns. The establishment of requirements development and management 
processes aligns with the draft guidance included in our Enterprise 
Investment Management Plan. This guidance states that directorates 
will decide the standard manner in which requirements are developed 
and managed to meet strategic business needs, to determine technical 
requirements for implementing solutions. Not only is the individual 
development of requirements management processes aligned with our 
overall investment management strategy, but the development of a 
memorandum of understanding between 2020 Census and IT Directorates is 
also underway. The intent of the memorandum is to outline how the 2020 
Census and IT Directorates will interact and make collaborative 
decisions regarding the development and management of IT systems and 
solutions in support of the 2020 Census Directorate business needs 
throughout the remainder of the decade. 

While we could not at the time of the audit share a detailed timeline 
indicating when complete implementation would occur, there is a plan 
to integrate these two individual requirements strategies. Moreover, 
planning is underway to leverage a standard requirements tool aligned 
to our enterprise architecture and enterprise standards and provided 
through our standard suite of management tools across the Bureau, We 
anticipate that, through the implementation of a standard requirements 
management tool, the logical points of integration between the 2020
Census requirements processes and IT requirements processes will 
emerge and the joint commitment of the 2020 Census and IT Directorates 
to ensure effective development and management of requirements in 
support of the 2020 Census will prove successful for the Bureau. 

IT Workforce Planning: 

Training and Workforce Development: 

The Census Bureau has provided extensive education and training for 
our IT workforce for years. We gather requirements through ongoing 
needs assessments, conversations with managers, and training requests. 
Although we have not had a formal, integrated plan based on best 
practices, we have provided IT training based on organizational 
staffing needs. The Census Bureau also will develop a workforce plan 
that incorporates strategies for hiring, developing/training, and 
contracting to meet current and future IT and non-IT requirements. To 
accomplish this, we must first review the current workforce 
competencies and better understand where and why we are using a 
contract workforce to fill gaps. Significant budget reductions, of 
course, could slow down our workforce planning efforts. 

Enterprise Workforce Planning and Development: 

The Census Bureau has developed an overall approach for completing the 
Enterprise Workforce Development Project Plan, and has started working 
with the directorates to build competency models and to plan for more 
detailed, ongoing skills assessments to support all levels of 
workforce planning and development. This effort began two years ago, 
when the Census Bureau developed foundational materials for enterprise 
workforce planning. As part of this effort, the Human Competency 
Assessment Team worked with managers and subject matter experts to 
develop a comprehensive, role-based competency dictionary, as well as 
a subset of competencies that align with the Statistical Program 
Functions and Mission Enabling and Support Functional (SPF/MFS) 
Framework. 

IT Pilot Competency Assessment: 

One important accomplishment is the IT Pilot Competency Assessment. 
The 11CM Competency Assessment Team, along with numerous IT managers 
and subject-matter experts, developed, vetted, clarified, and tested 
pilot IT-related competencies following workforce planning best 
practices. The initial pilot was completed in 2011, but a detailed 
analysis of the results indicated that the tool needed further 
refinement through a supplemental assessment. 

The IT Pilot Competency Assessment was not focused on specific skills, 
but on broad competencies. For example, we were not looking for SAS 
programming expertise; we were looking for those who had proficiency 
in programming languages. The IT Pilot Competency Assessment included 
an employee self-assessment and supervisor assessment, which was used 
to identify gaps. While our pilot results have provided clear insight 
into the distribution of proficiency levels across competencies, we 
also recognized that we needed additional information about specific 
skills and expertise of our employees as well as IT contractors. We 
have almost completed a supplemental assessment examining the specific 
skills and expertise of our IT staff and our IT contractors. This work 
will be factored into our overall assessment of future IT capabilities. 

The Bureau-wide assessment and competency gap analysis is scheduled 
for fall 2012. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

David A. Powner at (202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact listed above, the following staff made key 
contributions to this report: Vijay D'Souza (Assistant Director); 
Justin Booth; Nancy Glover; Valerie Hopkins; Paul Middleton; Tarunkant 
Mithani; and Karl Seifert. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] See [hyperlink, http://www.census.gov]. 

[2] GAO, 2010 Census: Preliminary Lessons Learned Highlight the Need 
for Fundamental Reforms, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-496T] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 6, 
2011). 

[3] The bureau defines IT staff as those staff with the Office of 
Personnel Management 0391, 1550, or 2210 job series. 

[4] GAO, Information Technology Investment Management: A Framework for 
Assessing and Improving Process Maturity (Version 1.1), [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G] (Washington, D.C.: March 
2004). 

[5] As relevant here, 40 U.S.C. § 11312. 

[6] GAO, Information Technology: DHS Needs to Further Define and 
Implement Its New Governance Process, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-818] (Washington, D.C.: July 25, 
2012); Information Technology: IRS Has a Strong Oversight Process but 
Needs to Improve How It Continues Funding Ongoing Investments, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-587] (Washington, D.C.: 
July 20, 2011); Information Technology: HUD Needs to Better Define 
Commitments and Disclose Risks for Modernization Projects in Future 
Expenditure Plans, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-72] 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 23, 2010); Information Technology: HUD Needs 
to Strengthen Its Capacity to Manage and Modernize Its Environment, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-675] (Washington, D.C.: 
July 31, 2009); Information Technology: FDA Needs to Establish Key 
Plans and Processes for Guiding Systems Modernization Efforts, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-523] (Washington D.C.: 
June 2, 2009); and Information Technology: SSA Has Taken Key Steps for 
Managing Its Investments, but Needs to Strengthen Oversight and Fully 
Define Policies and Procedures, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1020] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 12, 
2008). 

[7] Office of Management and Budget, 25 Point Implementation Plan to 
Reform Federal Information Technology Management (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 9, 2010). 

[8] GAO, Software Development: Effective Practices and Federal 
Challenges in Applying Agile Methods, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-681] (Washington, D.C.: July 27, 
2012). 

[9] Office of Management and Budget, 25 Point Implementation Plan to 
Reform Federal Information Technology Management (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 9, 2010) and Immediate Review of Financial Systems IT Projects, M-
10-26 (Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2010). 

[10] Software Engineering Institute, CMMI for Development, Version 
1.3, CMU/SEI-2010-TR-033 (Pittsburgh, Pa: November 2010). 

[11] GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic 
Workforce Planning, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39] 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003). 

[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39]; GAO, 
Workforce Planning: Interior, EPA, and the Forest Service Should 
Strengthen Linkages to Their Strategic Plans and Improve Evaluation, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-413] (Washington, D.C.: 
Mar. 31, 2010); and Office of Personnel Management, Human Capital 
Assessment and Accountability Framework--Systems, Standards, and 
Metrics [hyperlink, http://www.opm.gov/hcaaf_resource_center/]. 

[13] The Chief Information Officers Council defines a skill as a 
granular or discrete ability related to a specific product or 
technology. 

[14] The Office of Personnel Management defines a competency as a 
measurable pattern of knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and 
other characteristics that an individual needs to successfully perform 
a work role or occupational function. 

[15] GAO, Information Technology: Treasury Needs to Strengthen Its 
Investment Board Operations and Oversight, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-865] (Washington, D.C.: July 23, 
2007). 

[16] GAO, Information Technology: DHS Needs to Further Define and 
Implement Its New Governance Processes, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-818] (Washington, D.C.: July 25, 
2012); and Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guide, Version 3, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-10.1.15] (Washington, 
D.C.: May 1997). 

[17] GAO, Information Technology Management: Census Bureau Has 
Implemented Many Key Practices, but Additional Actions Are Needed, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-661] (Washington, D.C: 
June 16, 2005). 

[18] GAO, Information Technology: Census Bureau Needs to Improve Its 
Risk Management of Decennial Systems, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-79] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 5, 
2007). 

[19] The Field Data Collection Automation program, originally 
estimated to cost $596 million, was intended to use handheld mobile 
devices to support field data collection for address canvassing to 
verify addresses and for nonresponse follow-up, or following up in 
person with respondents who failed to return the mail questionnaire. 
In April 2008, the Census Bureau decided not to use the handheld 
devices for nonresponse follow-up, but did continue to use the devices 
for other decennial census operations. 

[20] GAO, High-Risk Series, An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-271] (Washington, D.C.: January 
2009). 

[21] GAO, Information Technology: Significant Problem of Critical 
Automation Program Contribute to Risks Facing 2010 Census, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-550T] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 5, 
2008). 

[22] GAO, Information Technology: Census Bureau Testing of 2010 
Decennial Systems Can Be Strengthened, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-262] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 5, 
2009). 

[23] GAO, 2010 Census: Census Has Made Progress on Schedule and 
Operational Control Tools, but Needs to Prioritize Remaining System 
Requirements, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-59] 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 2009). 

[24] GAO, 2010 Census: Data Collection Operations Were Generally 
Completed As Planned, but Long-Standing Challenges Suggest Need for 
Fundamental Reform, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-193] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 14, 
2010). 

[25] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-496T]. 

[26] GAO, 2020 Census: Additional Steps Are Needed to Build on Early 
Planning, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-626] 
(Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2012). 

[27] This report did not include the bureau's IT investment management 
practices as part of its scope. 

[28] U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General, Top 
Management Challenges Face the Department of Commerce, OIG-11-015 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 20, 2010). 

[29] U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, Census 
Bureau - Census 2010: Final Report to Congress, OIG-11-030-I 
(Washington, D.C.: June 27, 2011). 

[30] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-661]. 

[31] One example of an iterative development process model is Agile. 

[32] Software Engineering Institute, CMMI for Development, Version 
1.3, CMU/SEI-2010-TR-033 (Pittsburgh, Pa: November 2010). 

[33] Alternative models allow for developing software in increments or 
stages, adding additional capabilities until a full system is 
developed, which can provide a better return on investment. In 
addition, alternative models have the potential to address changes in 
requirements more readily than a waterfall model. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-681]. 

[34] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-79], [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-550T], and [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-59]. 

[35] The Electronic Document Management System will be used to 
streamline the American Community Service Office and 2020 Census 
program processes for developing, reviewing, and approving documents 
at the program and project levels. 

[36] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-818] and 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-10.1.15]. 

[37] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-79] and 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-59]. 

[38] We reported on the bureau's early management of strategic 
workforce planning for the 2020 Decennial Census for areas other than 
IT in May 2012. See [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-626]. 

[39] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-394G]. 

[40] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-661]. 

[41] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-818] and 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-10.1.15]. 

[End of section] 

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