Recommendation: The NNSA Administrator should incorporate additional management controls to better oversee and coordinate NNSA's microelectronics activities. Such management controls could include investing the microelectronics coordinator with increased responsibility and authority, developing an overarching management plan, and developing a mission need statement and a microelectronics requirements document. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Energy: National Nuclear Security Administration
Status: Open

Comments: In a May 2020 letter signed by the NNSA Administrator that provided agency comments on our draft report, NNSA neither agreed nor disagreed with our recommendation. However, NNSA stated that by December 2020 the agency plans to complete a strategic management plan that will more clearly articulate the integration of management controls for the various components of its microelectronics activities. NNSA stated that it believes this action is consistent with our recommendation. We are encouraged by this planned action and will evaluate the completed strategic management plan to determine if it meets the intent of our recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Director of the Office of Project Management and the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to work together to establish requirements for classifying cleanup work as capital asset projects or operations activities. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE partially concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that DOE developed a draft Cleanup Project Management Policy to clarify the expectations for EM's management of discrete work, such as operations activities that could be considered projects. In February 2020, EM officials stated that they are addressing this recommendation in two steps. First, EM is working with DOE's Office of Project Management to draft a Cleanup Project Management Policy (expected to be completed in spring 2020) to address the Decommissioning and Deactivation (D&D) phase of cleanup. This policy will become an appendix in DOE's Order 413.3B. EM officials further stated that EM plans to develop an additional Cleanup Program Management Policy that would classify the remaining types of activities not covered by the Cleanup Project Management Policy, including what EM currently classifies as operations activities. EM plans to implement this policy by the end of fiscal year 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Director of the Office of Project Management and the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to work together to asses EM's ongoing operations activities to determine if they should be reclassified as capital asset projects based on the newly established requirements. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE partially concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that DOE developed a draft Cleanup Project Management Policy to clarify the expectations for EM's management of discrete work, such as operations activities that could be considered projects. In February 2020, EM officials stated that they are addressing this recommendation in two steps. First, EM is working with DOE's Office of Project Management to draft a Cleanup Project Management Policy (expected to be completed in spring 2020) to address the Decommissioning and Deactivation (D&D) phase of cleanup. This policy will become an appendix in DOE's Order 413.3B. EM officials further stated that EM plans to develop an additional Cleanup Program Management Policy that would classify the remaining types of activities not covered by the Cleanup Project Management Policy, including what EM currently classifies as operations activities. EM plans to implement this policy by the end of fiscal year 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to review and revise EM's 2017 cleanup policy to include program management leading practices related to scope, cost, schedule performance, and independent reviews. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: DOE concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that EM intends to replace its current EM Cleanup Policy with two separate project and program management policies that will incorporate leading practices related to scope, cost, and schedule, and independent reviews, as appropriate. In February 2020, EM officials stated that EM is working on a Cleanup Project Management Policy (expected to be completed in spring 2020) that will cover the Decommissioning and Deactivation (D&D) phase of cleanup. EM plans to develop an additional Cleanup Program Management Policy (expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020), which will supersede EM's current cleanup policy and include leading program management practices-and possibly also project management practices-related to scope, cost, schedule performance, and independent reviews.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to review and revise EM's 2017 cleanup policy to include project management leading practices related to scope, cost, schedule performance, and independent reviews. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: DOE concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that EM intends to replace its current EM Cleanup Policy with two separate project and program management policies that will incorporate leading practices related to scope, cost, and schedule, and independent reviews, as appropriate. In February 2020, EM officials stated that EM is working on a Cleanup Project Management Policy (expected to be completed in spring 2020) that will cover the Decommissioning and Deactivation (D&D) phase of cleanup. EM plans to develop an additional Cleanup Program Management Policy (expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020), which will supersede EM's current cleanup policy and include leading program management practices-and possibly also project management practices-related to scope, cost, schedule performance, and independent reviews.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to update its cleanup policy to require that earned value management (EVM) systems be maintained and used in a way that follows EVM best practices. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that EM intends to replace its current EM Cleanup Policy with two separate project and program management policies that will incorporate earned value management best practices, as appropriate. In February 2020, EM officials stated that EM's forthcoming Cleanup Project Management Policy (expected to be completed in spring 2020) will require capital asset projects covered under the policy to use earned value management (EVM) systems that have been independently certified, which is an EVM best practice. However, EM officials told us that this policy will not require operations activities to follow EVM best practices. EM officials stated that EM is also considering including this requirement in its forthcoming Cleanup Program Management Policy (expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020). In addition, EM officials told is that EM plans to require future end-state contracts to use EVM systems that have either been certified by the DOE Office of Project Management or been subject to a "compliance review" conducted by EM itself, depending on the dollar value of the contract.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to develop a policy to ensure that work is categorized as level of effort only in appropriate, specified circumstances, such as when work is not measurable or when measurement is impractical. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that EM intends to include requirements related to the categorization of level of effort work in the project and program management policies EM is developing.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy should direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Environmental Management to integrate EVM data into EM's performance metrics for operations activities. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE partially concurred with this recommendation. In August 2019, in a letter to GAO on how EM will address our recommendation, the Senior Advisor for Environmental Management to the Under Secretary for Science stated that DOE is in the process of developing a Cleanup Program Management Policy that will, among other things, incorporate changes relative to the integration of EVM data into performance metrics as appropriate. As of February 2020, EM officials told us that the new policy is expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020. In February 2020, EM officials stated that EM plans to begin a new performance review process for operations activities that will include EVM-based performance metrics as part of annual reporting to the Assistant Secretary. The new process is expected to begin in October 2020, but EM officials have not determined whether this will be a requirement included in EM's forthcoming Cleanup Program Management Policy.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements that clearly define how and where project management lessons learned for capital asset projects should be documented and saved to make them readily accessible across the department. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, continues to work on developing a policy memorandum in advance of revising DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets, to identify the project management lessons learned and outline the kinds of information the repository will collect. We will monitor DOE's effort and evaluate the action once it is complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements for sharing project management lessons learned for capital asset projects from the beginning of a project (i.e., prior to the start of construction at CD-3) routinely and in a timely manner to improve DOE's ability to identify and evaluate problematic practices and positive experiences. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, continues to work on developing a policy memorandum in advance of revising DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets, to have those conducting peer reviews elicit project management lessons learned with department-wide applicability and submit any discerned, as well as replace the order's definition of project management lessons learned with a standard industry definition. We will monitor DOE's efforts and evaluate the actions once they are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Energy, in coordination with DOE's Office of Project Management and NNSA's Office of Acquisition and Project Management, should develop requirements for evaluating the effectiveness of corrective actions taken in response to project management problems for capital asset projects, with a focus on those lessons that necessitate the need for department-wide improvements. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: DOE concurred with the recommendation and as of July 2020, plans to revise the Project Management Risk Committee charter by assigning it the responsibility to qualitatively evaluate the effectiveness of corrective actions taken in response to project management lessons learned from projects with a total project cost greater than $750 million having department-wide implications. This action, however, may not fully address the recommendation, in part because there may be some lessons learned with applicability department-wide from projects that do not meet this cost threshold. We will monitor DOE's effort and evaluate the action once it is complete.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary for Health should work with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA's) Office of Construction and Facilities Management to ensure that VHA incorporates the 12 steps in the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide in VHA's updated construction projects' cost-estimating guidance. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: The Office of Capital Asset Management Engineering and Support (OCAMES) is working with the Office of Construction and Facility Management (OCFM) to make necessary updates to CFM's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide. GAO has reviewed VA's revisions and found that while they incorporated information on two of the 12 steps in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, the guidance currently meets or substantially meets only 4 of the 12 steps. GAO met with OCFM and OCAMES staff in April 2020 to further discuss our guidance and how to apply it. The VA staff will consider how to further apply our guidance.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary for Health should obtain information on cost increases, schedule delays, and reasons for contract modifications in its updated Capital Asset Database through requiring medical center staff to provide the information or another appropriate method. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: OCAMES is finalizing updates and fixing issues related to improvements to the Capital Asset Database; these updates include additional information related to change orders. Due to unexpected challenges with data connections and issues; however, these improvements have not yet been completed. The change in completion date is caused by data connection issues and progress on the overall system was stalled. GAO will continue to monitor VA's progress in implementing this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary for Health should develop a comprehensive plan that includes elements such as milestones and roles and responsibilities for updating VHA's Capital Asset Database. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs: Veterans Health Administration
Status: Open

Comments: OCAMES is still finalizing updates and fixing issues related to improvements to the Capital Asset Database. Until the updates have been finalized, roles and responsibilities cannot be created. Upon completion of updates, roles and responsibilities will be developed.

Recommendation: To ensure that NNSA will provide clear information to stakeholders about the program needs that the revised CMRR project will satisfy, the Secretary should direct the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security, in his capacity as the NNSA Administrator, to update the program requirements document for the revised CMRR project to clarify whether the project will provide plutonium analysis equipment to meet the needs of DOE and NNSA programs other than those in the Office of Defense Programs.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: As of August 2020, LANL has drafted a revised PRD but NNSA's review is not yet complete. This recommendation will remain open until we can evaluate the PRD.