The U.S. Government's $12 Billion Sinkhole

[Will.Spencer]

The U.S. Government's $12 Billion Sinkhole

Here’s a fun little item, outrageous to both good project managers and U.S. taxpayers alike. The federal government has about $12 billion in information technology projects “either poorly planned or going poorly,” the General Accountability Office says.

A GAO report last week said that the Office of Management and Budget, whose many duties include analyzing the risks and performance of federal IT investments, has put 263 of 857 budgeted projects on its “Management Watch List.” That means these projects were either poorly justified or aren’t meeting performance criteria identified at the outset of the project. Another 79 projects were identified by federal agencies themselves as “high risk.”

Since August 2005, federal agencies CIOs have been required to report to OMB how their technology projects are doing against four criteria: cost, schedule and performance baselines; whether they’re keeping work to within 10 percent of budget and schedule; whether a qualified project manager is involved; and how well, or not, the project avoids duplication of similar efforts in other parts of the government. So as not to waste money, you know.

Twelve billion dollars is 19 percent of the $64 billion the federal government plans to spend on technology in fiscal 2007.

...