Information Technology Management: Social Security Administration Practices Can Be Improved

Abstract

To improve SSAs IT management practices, we recommend that the Acting Commissioner of Social Security direct the Chief Information Officer and the Deputy Commissioner for Systems to complete the following actions: In the investment management area, (1) develop and implement a process guide that establishes the policies, procedures, and key criteria for conducting the IT investment management process and guiding executive staff operations; (2) develop and maintain selection criteria that include explicit cost, benefit, schedule, and risk criteria to facilitate the objective analysis, comparison, prioritization, and selection of IT investments; (3) analyze and prioritize all IT investments based on the predefined selection criteria and make selection decisions according to the established process; (4) establish and annually review cost, benefit, schedule, and risk life-cycle expectations for each selected investment; (5) revise the IT oversight process so that the executive staff oversees the comparison of actual cost, benefit, schedule, and risk data with original estimates for all investments to determine whether they are proceeding as expected and, if not, to take corrective actions as appropriate; (6) regularly perform post-implementation reviews of IT investments and develop lessons learned from the process; (7) develop, manage, and regularly evaluate the performance of a comprehensive IT investment portfolio containing detailed and summary information (including data on costs, benefits, schedules, and risks) for all IT investments; and (8) implement investment process benchmarking so that measurable improvements may be made to agency IT investment management processes based on those used by best-in-class organizations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA393927

Entities

People

  • Clay Shaw

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • Business Administration
  • Computer Network Security
  • Computers
  • Configuration Management
  • Electronic Mail
  • Human Resources
  • Information Security
  • Information Systems
  • Management Personnel
  • Money
  • Organizational Structure
  • Project Management
  • Reliability
  • Risk Analysis
  • Software Development
  • Systems Engineering

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis