The Government Accountability Office has called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve its requirements for the modernization of its financial management system. The congressional watchdog said in a new report published Monday that two previous attempts of the VA to replace its 30-year-old financial and acquisition system have failed, partly due to the agency’s unreliable cost estimate and schedule.
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VA’s Legacy Financial System Problem
According to GAO, the core technology in the VA’s financial management system is over 30 years old. Since 1988, the VA has been trying to replace the systems, which has incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in costs and led to years of developmental delays.
In its most recent attempt, the VA spent $1.9 billion over six incremental deployments of its Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System, or iFAMS. The effort, which began in 2016, is expected to be completed in 2031.
According to the VA, iFAMS is designed to serve as an “enterprise resource planning cloud solution.”
Why VA Is Struggling With Systems Replacement
In 2021, GAO recommended that the VA refine its requirements to create a more accurate cost estimate and schedule consistent with its best practices. According to the watchdog, the move would ensure that the VA can better manage risks and make fully informed decisions.
GAO also called out the VA for only partially meeting three of eight Agile best practices for requirements development and management. One of the unfulfilled best practices involves ensuring that the requirements are complete, feasible and verifiable. The VA also failed to maintain traceability in requirements decomposition and balance customer and user needs and constraints.
The watchdog reiterated its recommendation to the VA to fully implement Agile best practices for requirements development and management. VA concurred with the recommendations.
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