The Veterans Affairs Department's Program Management Accountability System, which the department has used to review IT programs since July 2009, should not be "considered completely established or fully operational," according to a VA Office of Inspector General report (.pdf) published Aug. 29.

The audit finds that the VA office of information technology stood up PMAS without a roadmap, adequate leadership or enough staff to effectively execute the program. 

The report author, Belinda Finn, assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations, also questions the data reliability of PMAS.

"Specifically, OIT has not established key management controls over data reliability, project compliance, and project costs-controls needed to make PMAS a viable IT oversight mechanism," writes Finn. "Until these deficiencies are addressed, VA will not fully achieve the goal of PMAS to reduce cost overruns, schedule slippages and poor performance."

The report notes inaccuracies in the PMAS dashboard, and provides the BusinessWare Migration project as one example. The project manager pushed back the date for an initial operating capability test--initially scheduled for Sept. 28, 2010--to Nov. 30, 2010, causing OIT to lose visibility of the original baseline information in the dashboard. As such, the program appeared to be on track. When the BusinessWare Migration project missed the revised completion date, OIT officials gave the program one strike and extended the test completion date to March 30, 2011. The program then missed the newer, revised date.

"As of April 22, 2011, the PMAS Dashboard showed no indication that the project was at risk [and]...incorrectly indicated that the project was on schedule, it also indicated that the project had not received any strikes. In May 2011, the PMAS Dashboard was updated to show that the project had three strikes against it and was still ongoing and meeting schedule even though the dates had changed several times," says the audit.

As of May 2011, 119 IT projects were actively using PMAS, 60 more were in the planning state, and an additional 41 IT projects were classified as "new starts," according to the report. "PMAS represents a major shift from the way VA historically has planned and managed IT development projects," notes Finn. Although, OIT has made progress in its development and implementation of the plan, it has a long way to go before it can be considered operational, she adds.

Department leadership, however, has repeatedly touted the program's gains. The most prominent supporter of PMAS probably is VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who said during a March 2 Senate Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing that "in just one year, PMAS exceeded an 80 percent success rate of meeting customers' milestones."

According to the report, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker concurred with the audit's recommendations that VA develop an implementation plan, improve leadership and staff, and ensure data reliability. In April, Baker questioned the resiliency of the program, saying "I'm not satisfied that if I left today PMAS would continue on."

For more:
- see the audit (.pdf)

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