In fiscal year 2003, Interior invested over $850 million in IT—about 6  percent of its total budget. While the Secretary of the Interior has the  ultimate responsibility for managing these investments—including  overseeing and guiding the development, management, and use of  information resources and information technology throughout the  department—Interior’s CIO is responsible for providing leadership and  oversight for IT investment management processes throughout the agency. Reviews Identified Need for Improving IT Investment Management

Prior reviews of IT projects performed at Interior over the past decade—by  GAO and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as well as Interior’s  Office of the Inspector General (OIG)—have revealed significant  weaknesses in IT investment management practices at both the department  and the bureau levels. In addition, the department’s ability to  oversee the successful implementation and execution of the required  practices is limited, although a number of initiatives have been undertaken  to address this issue. If Interior’s bureaus do not have investment management  processes in place that adequately support the department’s investment  management process, its CIO must take action to ensure that the  department is expending funds on IT investments that will fulfill its mission  needs. In multitiered organizations, information from an IT project  and system inventory should be accessible and relevant to the decision  processes of boards at all levels of the organization that are responsible for  ITIM activities. These  achievements notwithstanding, the department has yet to implement most  key practices—such as using established criteria to analyze each  investment and prioritizing these investments accordingly. To its credit, Interior has taken several crucial initial  steps to make this possible; it conducted a study of existing organizational  structures, issued a secretarial order providing broad authorities to its  CIOs, and issued a capital planning and investment control guide that  provided a conceptual framework for improvements to the IT investment  management process. The Department of the Interior has indicated that it intends to create a  comprehensive reform plan with target goals and measurement criteria,  but this plan has not been fully developed. The department has recognized that it needs to oversee bureau activities,  and it has begun to establish the authority of bureau CIOs to manage IT  investments and to implement certification of standard investment  processes in the bureaus. However, until the department is able to ensure  mature investment management capabilities at all levels, its ability to  wisely select and effectively manage IT investments will be limited. Recommendations

To strengthen Interior’s capabilities for IT investment management and  address the weaknesses discussed in this report, we recommend that the  Secretary of the Interior direct Interior’s CIO to do the following:  Develop a unified, comprehensive plan for implementing  departmentwide improvements to the IT investment management  process that are based on the Stage 2 and Stage 3 critical processes of  our ITIM framework.
Why GAO Did This Study

The Department of the Interior is responsible for diverse and complex missions ranging from managing America's public lands, mineral and water resources, and wildlife to providing satellite data to the military and scientific communities. To fulfill these responsibilities, Interior invests over $850 million annually--about 6 percent of its total annual budget--in communications and computing projects and systems. Interior's Office of the Secretary and its Chief Information Officer (CIO) are responsible for overseeing processes for managing these investments to ensure that funds are expended in the most cost-effective way in support of the agency's mission needs. GAO was asked to evaluate (1) departmental capabilities for managing the agency's information technology (IT) investments and (2) the department's actions and plans to improve these capabilities.

What GAO Found

The Department of the Interior has limited capability to manage its IT investments. Based on GAO's IT Investment Management (ITIM) Framework, which measures the maturity of an organization's investment management processes, the department is carrying out few of the activities that support critical foundational processes. As an initial step to improve its investment management capability, the department has issued a Capital Planning and Investment Control Guide, which describes its approach to IT investment management. However, it has thus far implemented few of the processes described in its own guide. In addition, it has yet to develop an adequate approach to identify existing projects and systems. In order to ensure strong investment management at all levels, the department has also specified a requirement for certifying bureau-level investment processes, but certification has not yet begun. Finally, in order to strengthen the CIO's ability to manage IT investments at all levels, the Secretary of the Interior has issued an order establishing the authority of the bureau-level CIOs; however, the order has not been fully implemented. In order to improve investment management processes, an organization needs to develop and implement a coherent plan, supported by senior management, which defines and prioritizes enhancements to its investment processes. While Interior has undertaken a number of initiatives designed to improve its investment management processes, the department has not yet developed a unified, comprehensive plan to achieve its objective of establishing effective investment management processes, nor has it committed the resources to successfully implement the necessary reforms. Without a well-defined process improvement plan and controls for implementing it, Interior will continue to be challenged in its ability to make informed and prudent investment decisions.