Office of Personnel Management: Improvements Needed to Ensure Successful Retirement Systems Modernization

OPM began taking steps to address this recommendation but the steps were insufficient or incomplete and did not effectively address the risks to deployment of the new retirement system. Specifically, the agency added testing resources, but the resources were not sufficient to ensure successful testing of system functionality. Additionally, OPM's approach to mitigating the risks inherent in concurrent system testing was limited to significantly reducing the scope of system functionality to be deployed. Further, test results did not verify that system components were performing as expected. Finally, while OPM subjected test activities and results to independent verification and validation (IV&V), it did not implement the IV&V recommendations. Subsequently, the retirement system that the agency deployed in February 2008 did not perform as intended. After months of unsuccessful efforts to improve system performance, the agency stopped work on a key system contract and terminated the contract in October 2008. Thus, OPM did not implement and is no longer in a position to implement this recommendation.

In January 2008, OPM acknowledged the need to resolve defects prior to deployment of its new retirement system. However, in February 2008, the agency deployed the system even though one urgent and twelve high priority defects had not been resolved. Further, the resolution (or not) of urgent and high priority defects was not subjected to independent verification and validation.

In March 2008, OPM acknowledged the need to increase the reliability of its retirement modernization program cost estimate. However, the agency had not implemented the recommendation at the time we conducted a follow up study that identified additional cost estimating weakness. In April 2009, we made a more expansive recommendation for OPM to address weakness in its retirement modernization cost estimate and estimating practices (GAO-09-529).

In March 2008, OPM acknowledged the need to establish a basis for effective use of earned value management for its retirement modernization program. However, the agency had not implemented the recommendation at the time we conducted a follow up study that identified additional earned value management weaknesses. In April 2009, we made a more expansive recommendation for OPM to address weakness in its retirement modernization earned value management practices (GAO-09-529).