Veterans Benefits Modernization: VBA Has Begun to Address Software Development Weaknesses But Work Remains
AIMD-97-154
Published: Sep 15, 1997. Publicly Released: Sep 15, 1997.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO conducted a follow-up review to determine the actions taken by the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) to address management and technical weaknesses identified in the June 19, 1996, hearing on the agency's modernization effort, focusing on the agency's actions to improve its software development capability.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
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Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should direct the Under Secretary for Benefits, in conjunction with VBA's chief information officer, to define the milestones, costs, tasks, and risks of the software process improvement initiative in order to provide a clear strategy for how VBA plans to improve its software development capability to a repeatable level. |
VBA agreed with the recommendation and developed an action plan in 1997 for reaching the repeatable level. However, since then, due to budget issues and changes in IT priorities, progress has been slower than anticipated. VBA continues to work on addressing software development deficiencies in the six level 2 key process areas. For example, it is developing new policies and procedures for three of the six areas--software engineering, configuration management, and requirements management. However, VBA has not established a date for when it might reach the repeatable level.
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Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should direct the Under Secretary for Benefits, in conjunction with VBA's chief information officer, to develop and use a baseline showing VBA's current software development capability from which to measure VBA's software improvement effort. |
VBA agreed with the recommendation and initiated a project to develop a baseline showing its software development capability. This effort utilized GAO's report on VBA's software development capability, VBA's Software Practices Roundup review, and contractor reports. The baseline report was subsequently completed in 1999.
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Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should direct the Under Secretary for Benefits, in conjunction with VBA's chief information officer, to ensure that a training plan is developed and implemented that will provide key software development staff training in the software process improvement methodology, its principles, and key process areas. |
VBA agreed with the recommendation and has developed training material for the key process areas necessary to reach the repeatable level. Courses in Contract Management and Project Management are available, courses in Configuration Management are under development, and others are planned.
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Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should direct the Under Secretary for Benefits, in conjunction with VBA's chief information officer, to establish a source selection process to ensure that VBA's software development contractors have the mature processes necessary for timely, high-quality software development, including evaluating and validating documentation provided by potential contractors establishing that they are at the repeatable level or higher. |
VBA agreed with the recommendation and has developed standard language for all of its statements of work requiring all contractors to document their CMM level 2 status. VBA recently strengthened its CMM level statement to require contractors to already be at a CMM level 2 and to be certified by an outside source as CMM level 2. In addition, a source selection process is now in place which includes the CMM level 2 requirements as part of the evaluation criteria used by VBA proposal evaluation teams to rank contractor proposals.
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Topics
SoftwareSoftware verification and validationContract oversightCustomer serviceEmployee trainingInformation resources managementManagement information systemsStrategic information systems planningVeterans benefitsSoftware development