Introduction

In 2004, the Department of Justice (Department) began the Litigation Case Management System (LCMS) project. The purpose of the LCMS project is to develop a solution for sharing case information among seven of the Department’s litigating components – the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) and United States Attorneys Offices (USAO); Criminal Division (CRM); Civil Division (CIV); Tax Division (TAX); Civil Rights Division (CRT); Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD); and Antitrust Division (ATR).¹

FIGURE A: LCMS INTEGRATION

Source: LCMS Project Management Office

Through the LCMS, the Department seeks to provide an enterprise infrastructure for sharing case-related information within and between the USAOs, Department components, partner agencies, and the public. This case management system is intended to effectively store information once, manage it centrally, and make it available to approximately 14,500 authorized users in the seven litigating divisions. When fully implemented the LCMS database is expected to hold more than 650 gigabytes of data.

Each of the Department’s litigating divisions currently maintains its own case management system, which is not able to share information with other systems in the Department. As a result, these divisions cannot efficiently share information or produce comprehensive reports among the divisions. The separate systems also hamper the ability of the litigating divisions to collaborate and limit the timeliness and quality of case information available to Department leadership.

In 2004, the Department awarded a contract to Pragmatics to perform LCMS program management activities. These activities included tracking and managing the program schedule, monitoring and managing the program risks, and managing the prime contractor’s performance incentive plan. The initial award to Pragmatics guaranteed a minimum of $50,000 for the period October 2004 through September 2005. The Department planned to incrementally fund additional task orders throughout development and implementation of the LCMS, but did not develop an estimate of the total expected cost of Pragmatics services over the life of the LCMS development.

In 2005, the Department awarded a contract to Excella Consulting to perform technical advising services related to the LCMS project. These services included: managing, directing, and providing independent oversight of other LCMS contractors; reviewing and providing expert analysis, feedback, and quality assurance on other LCMS contractors’ deliverables; and tracking and managing project schedule and performance. The initial award to Excella totaled $67,000 for the period July through September 2005. As with the Pragmatics contract, the Department planned to incrementally fund additional task orders, but did not develop an estimate of the total expected cost.

In 2006, the Department awarded the prime contract to Computer Sciences Corporation to develop and implement the LCMS. The development activities included designing and testing the system. The implementation activities included deploying an operational system to the seven litigating divisions and providing training on use of the system. The estimated cost over the life of the contract was about $42 million. Initially, the system was to be fully implemented by December 2010.

OIG Audit Approach

The objective of this audit was to assess whether the LCMS is meeting schedule, cost, functional, and performance requirements. To accomplish the objective, we interviewed various Department and Computer Sciences Corporation officials regarding the design and implementation of the LCMS, including the:

• Department’s Chief Information Officer (CIO);
  
  
• Department’s Deputy CIO, who also serves as the Director of the Justice Management Division’s Enterprise Solutions Staff;
  
  
• LCMS Project Manager; and
  
  
• Computer Sciences Corporation Project Manager.

We also interviewed officials from each of the seven litigating divisions planned to receive the LCMS to determine their roles in the development of the LCMS and their views on the design and implementation of the system. In addition, we reviewed documents maintained by the LCMS Project Management Office regarding the status of system implementation, including cost, schedule, and functional and performance data.

Results in Brief

Our audit found that the Department’s LCMS project is significantly behind schedule, over budget, and at significant risk of not meeting the Department’s long-term enterprise requirements for litigation case management.

The Department initially estimated the LCMS would be implemented in the EOUSA and USAOs by March 2008, with implementation in the six other litigating divisions to be completed by December 2010. The Department also initially estimated that the primary contract to develop and implement the system would cost about $42 million, of which about $35 million was for implementation in the EOUSA and USAOs. The Department now estimates that the LCMS will not be fully implemented in the EOUSA and USAOs until July 2010, more than 2 years after the initial estimated completion date for the EOUSA and USAOs, and only 5 months before the initial estimated completion date for all seven litigating divisions.

Because implementation of the LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs is significantly behind schedule, the CIO has postponed any further work related to the other litigating divisions and does not have current schedule and cost estimates for completing the LCMS in the other divisions. However, as of
January 8, 2009, the Department estimated that the total cost of the primary contract to implement the LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs will be about $61 million, about 75 percent more than the initial estimate for the EOUSA and USAOs and more than $18 million over the initial estimated cost of implementation in all seven litigating divisions.

We concluded that the delays and budget overruns occurred because: (1) the requirements planning process was not effective, and requirements were modified and added after much work had been done; (2) system integration and user acceptance testing revealed severe defects, including data migration errors, access restrictions, and other errors that required an extensive amount of time to correct; and (3) the Department’s oversight efforts identified the severe difficulties that the Computer Sciences Corporation was having in meeting the schedule and cost requirements, but the Department’s actions did not minimize the schedule and cost overruns.

Because of the schedule problems and cost issues, the remaining six litigating divisions may not be committed to the LCMS and appear uncertain that it will meet their needs. These concerns, as well as background information about the LCMS, are discussed in more detail in the rest of the report.

Background

The Department’s Justice Management Division (JMD) is coordinating the LCMS project. Within JMD, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Information Resource Management is also the Department’s CIO. The CIO formulates Department-wide information technology policies and strategic plans. The CIO also provides guidance and oversight, and makes recommendations, concerning the information technology budget requests of the Department's component agencies. The CIO oversees the Enterprise Solutions Staff that is responsible for managing and overseeing critical information technology projects, such as the LCMS, in an effort to ensure that the projects meet cost, schedule, and performance goals.

The LCMS is intended to provide end users and managers with access to accurate, timely, and useful case management data. The CIO identified the “drivers” of the need for a unified system to be:

• The Department spends millions each year supporting seven different case management systems.
  
  
• The use of seven independent systems inhibits effective collaboration and information management.
  
  
• Distribution of information across seven different systems makes it difficult and costly to generate rational, Department-level reports that support decision-making.

Similarly, the CIO identified the “benefits” of system implementation as:

• The LCMS will be one central source for case tracking data.
  
  
• The LCMS will replace the existing litigation case management systems with a common system that supports the unique needs of the individual components as well as the Department.
  
  
• Through a solution that is common across litigating divisions, the LCMS enables greater and more effective collaboration and information management.
  
  
• The LCMS will make it easier for each litigating division to meet its requirements to manage and report on matters, cases, and related activities.

The LCMS is being designed and implemented through a “blended” effort of contractor and CIO staff. The LCMS Project Management Office within the Enterprise Solutions Staff has four full-time employees assigned to the LCMS project. The LCMS Project Manager reports directly to the director of the Enterprise Solutions Staff. However, most daily activities are handled by the three companies holding the LCMS contracts.

As shown in Table 1, the Department planned to implement the LCMS in three stages. The United States Attorneys were selected for the initial stage because of the size of operations and their urgent need for a new case management system. The USAOs have a nationwide field structure and substantially more users than the other six litigating divisions, which are primarily located in Washington, D.C.²

TABLE 1: STAGES OF LCMS IMPLEMENTATION

Stage	Litigating Divisions Included in Stage
1	EOUSA and USAOs
2	CIV, ENRD, CRT
3	CRM, TAX, ATR

The LCMS was originally planned for full implementation in the EOUSA and all USAOs by March 2008, with implementation in the other litigating divisions to follow in 2009 and 2010. The original estimate to design and implement the LCMS in all seven litigating divisions was approximately $42 million.³ These initial schedule and cost estimates have been greatly exceeded as discussed in the following sections.

Schedule Delays

As shown in Graph A, the LCMS project is significantly behind schedule, and the Department is not providing estimates for the timing of full completion of the project.

Source: LCMS Project Management Office Estimates

In May 2006, the Department initially estimated that the LCMS would be implemented in all seven litigating divisions by December 2010. The LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that this schedule was realistic and could have been met if the primary contractor had performed well. However, subsequent system development did not proceed as planned.

By December 2006, the Department realized that the May 2006 schedule was overly ambitious. The Department requested that the Computer Sciences Corporation revise the schedule to show a realistic timeline for completing the project. Based on the Computer Sciences Corporation’s projections, in April 2007 the Department released a revised schedule for completing the project. While the schedule focused on the Computer Sciences Corporation’s completion of work in Stage 1, LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that they and litigating division staff continued requirements planning for Stage 2. However, because the Computer Sciences Corporation was having difficulty completing the first stage of development and implementation within schedule and budget, the CIO decided to postpone any further Computer Sciences Corporation work related to the other litigating divisions and have the Computer Sciences Corporation focus on completing the development and implementation in only the EOUSA and USAOs. In the April 2007 estimate, the Department revised the completion date for implementation of the LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs to November 2008, about 8 months later than initially planned.

Yet, as of November 2008, the system still had not been implemented in the EOUSA and USAOs. At that time, the Department again revised its implementation schedule to show implementation in the EOUSA and USAOs by July 2010. This was more than 2 years later than initially planned, and only 5 months before the initial estimated completion date for all seven litigating divisions.

As of December 2008, the system was still being developed, but had not been implemented in any divisions or tested at the USAO pilot sites.

Causes for Schedule Delays

We have identified several causes for the delays in implementing LCMS:

• The requirements planning process. This process did not result in: (1) a comprehensive understanding of the system requirements by the Computer Sciences Corporation, and (2) the identification of all user requirements. As a result, system requirements had to be modified and added, which extended the time needed to develop the system. We found considerable disagreement between the Department and the Computer Sciences Corporation over which is at fault for the modified and added requirements. The Department blames the Computer Sciences Corporation for not understanding the requirements, and the Computer Sciences Corporation blames the Department for changing the requirements and adding new requirements. As discussed in the Requirements Planning section below, we concluded that both the Department and the Computer Sciences Corporation share responsibility for the requirements problems.
  
  
• System integration and user acceptance testing. This testing revealed severe defects, including data migration errors, access restrictions, and other errors during use of the system. Fixing the defects, and fixing repeat defects after further testing, caused many of the delays. As discussed in the System Integration and User Acceptance Testing section below, we concluded that both the Department and the Computer Sciences Corporation share responsibility for the testing problems.
  
  
• Oversight of the Contractors. The Department’s oversight of the Computer Sciences Corporation was not sufficient to ensure the contractor met the LCMS schedule and cost requirements. The Department used a “blended” workforce consisting of government and contractor staff to oversee the project. While Department officials said that this type of workforce approach has been and continues to be used effectively on other Department information technology projects, it did not work effectively to ensure the LCMS project remained on schedule and within budget. The Department’s oversight efforts identified the severe difficulties that the Computer Sciences Corporation was having in meeting the schedule and cost requirements, but the Department’s actions did not minimize the schedule and cost overruns. Department officials told us that they placed too much emphasis on trying to help the Computer Sciences Corporation develop the system, rather than taking actions to terminate the contract once they realized the Computer Sciences Corporation could not effectively and efficiently complete the project.

In the following sections, we discuss each of these causes in more detail.

Requirements Planning

A key element in designing and implementing an effective information technology system is the identification of detailed and comprehensive requirements for the system. The requirements include the data fields, interfaces, rules, access restrictions, reports, and many other items that are required to enable the system to meet the operational needs of the organization.

For the LCMS, a system planned for implementation across seven distinct divisions, the requirements planning process was critical. However, the Department’s requirements planning process did not result in: (1) a comprehensive understanding of the system requirements by the Computer Sciences Corporation, and (2) the identification of all user requirements.

Early in the LCMS project, the Department performed a requirements gathering process. The Department contracted with Pragmatics to perform the initial requirements gathering for the LCMS. In addition, the Computer Sciences Corporation performed additional requirements gathering that included performing a business process evaluation of the litigating divisions and the common aspects of the divisions. The LCMS Project Management Office also formed a cross-component working group that included all seven divisions. The group’s purpose was to discuss the various needs of the divisions and to establish the common methodologies used to track cases.

Although the LCMS Project Management Office, Pragmatics, and the Computer Sciences Corporation conducted requirements gathering, the requirements later had to be adjusted and new requirements were added during development of the system.

The former LCMS Project Manager in JMD told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation did not fully understand the requirements for the system when the development and implementation schedule was established. The former LCMS Project Manager said that following establishment of the schedule, the Computer Sciences Corporation found that the requirements for the system were far more extensive than originally identified. We asked LCMS Project Management Office officials for documentation to support that the Computer Sciences Corporation did not fully understand the requirements, but these officials were unable to provide such documentation. A LCMS Project Management Office official told us that the number of severe defects found during system integration and user acceptance testing indicate that the Computer Sciences Corporation did not fully understand the requirements.⁴

In contrast, a Computer Sciences Corporation official told us that the requirements were changed after the contract was signed. The Computer Sciences Corporation official also told us that many of the problems occurred because the Department added new requirements after the Computer Sciences Corporation’s Business Solutions Plan was approved by the Department. According to the Computer Sciences Corporation official, the Department added data elements from the EOUSA’s existing case management system, which created new rules and reports and increased the LCMS requirements from 507 to 580 (14 percent). He said that to incorporate the additional data elements into the LCMS, the Computer Sciences Corporation needed to perform additional work that contributed to the delays and cost overruns. LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that this increase in requirements is within the norm for a project such as the LCMS and, in their opinion, should not have materially increased the Computer Sciences Corporation’s cost and schedule.

While both the Department and the Computer Sciences Corporation officials agree that the requirements were modified and resulted in additional time to develop the system, the officials do not agree on whether the modified requirements resulted from the Department’s actions or the Computer Sciences Corporation’s actions. It appears to us that both the Department and the Computer Sciences Corporation share in the responsibility for the modified requirements. The Department did identify additional requirements for the Computer Sciences Corporation to perform as system development continued and the Department identified at least 89 enhancements to the system during system testing. The enhancements included items such as changing the default sort-order on reports, providing a group calendar, and synchronizing the LCMS calendar with Outlook.

We believe that these additional requirements and enhancements contributed to the additional time needed and costs incurred by the Computer Sciences Corporation to address the issues. In July 2008, the Computer Sciences Corporation submitted a change proposal to the Department. The proposal stated that both the company and the Department had contributed to the schedule delays. A company official also told us that some of the LCMS developmental problems were the Computer Sciences Corporation’s responsibility, although the official did not provide specific details of how the company delayed the schedule. Office of the CIO officials told us that they believed the Computer Sciences Corporation staff did not fully understand the LCMS requirements. While the schedule delays attributable to the Computer Sciences Corporation could be the result of various failures, including inadequate technical staff, inadequate supervision of work, and lack of understanding the requirements, we believe the most plausible explanation is a failure by the company to fully understand the requirements.

System Integration and User Acceptance Testing

System integration testing is a process that determines whether a software system works with other systems as intended. Following integration testing, a system undergoes user acceptance testing, which is a process to obtain confirmation by subject matter experts, preferably the owners or clients of the system, that the system meets mutually agreed-upon requirements. User acceptance testing is usually one of the final stages of a project and often occurs before a client or customer accepts the new system.

System integration and user acceptance testing for the LCMS, conducted from January through October 2008, identified severe defects, including data migration errors, access restrictions, and other errors during use of the system. The number and severity of the defects found are shown in Table 2. Severe defects are the critical and major defects, as defined below, and they must be corrected before the project can continue. Table 2 also shows the percentage of each defect type found during testing of the LCMS.

TABLE 2: DEFECTS FOUND DURING SYSTEM INTEGRATION
AND USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING OF THE LCMS

Defect Severity	Total	Percentage	Description
Critical	46	3.6%	A previously functioning baseline has failed in such a manner as to prevent the accomplishment of critical mission functions.
Major	261	20.6%	Adversely affects the accomplishment of an operational or mission essential capability and no user-acceptable work-around solution is known.
Average	516	40.7%	Adversely affects the accomplishment of an operational or mission essential capability but a user-acceptable work-around solution is known.
Minor	271	21.4%	Results in user/operator inconvenience but does not affect a required operational or mission essential capability.
Enhancement	173	13.7%	System improvement or enhancement that is subject to consideration by the LCMS Change Control Board.
	1,267	100%

Examples of the severe defects found during testing are shown in Table 3.

TABLE 3: EXAMPLES OF SEVERE DEFECTS FOUND
DURING TESTING OF LCMS

Examples of Severe Defects
Critical Defects
System errors when a record is selected for expunging.
System errors when saving a record that has certain blank field values.
Attorney caseload reports show data for entire district instead of for selected attorney.
Major Defects
System cannot change records from matter to case in court history.
System cannot create appeal records.
System allows charged and dispositioned participants to be deleted from the case.

We believe these severe and repeat defects reflect on the quality of the Computer Sciences Corporation’s work, and that fixing these defects and further testing caused many of the delays to the LCMS project. When defects were detected during the testing, the schedule had to be revised to accommodate the time necessary for fixing the errors. According to an October 2006 detailed estimated schedule prepared to support the May 2006 summary schedule, system integration testing was planned to begin in February 2007 and last about 6 weeks. However, system integration testing did not begin until January 2008. The October 2006 estimate also showed that user acceptance testing would begin in April 2007 and take just over 3 months. Yet, user acceptance testing did not begin until July 2008. Each of these tests identified significant defects and required significant fixes and retesting.

As of December 2008, the program was still undergoing both system integration testing and user acceptance testing. This testing, fixing, and retesting were expected to continue until October 2009.

In the Computer Sciences Corporation’s July 2008 change proposal, it attributed 25 percent of the system integration testing delays to the Department because the testing management tool provided by the Department could not be accessed by company staff for the first 2 weeks of testing. However, the change proposal stated that the company was the cause of the remaining 75 percent of system integration testing delays, although it did not elaborate on the reasons for the delays.

In our opinion, problems found during system integration and user acceptance testing occurred because the Computer Sciences Corporation did not fully understand the system requirements and did not perform work of sufficient quality, and because the Department added new requirements and system enhancements during the process.

Department Oversight

According to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources, federal agencies must provide sufficient oversight to ensure that major information systems proceed in a timely fashion towards agreed-upon milestones in an information system life cycle. However, in 2006, at the initiation of the Computer Sciences Corporation contract for the design, development, and implementation of the LCMS, the Department committed only two full-time government employees to the project – a LCMS Project Manager and Deputy LCMS Project Manager. Because the Department did not have the in-house resources to fully oversee the contract, the Department awarded a program management contract and a technical advisory contract for much of the oversight of the Computer Sciences Corporation. Department officials told us that its approach to use both government and contractors to oversee information technology projects has been and continues to be used effectively on other Department projects. However, this approach has not worked effectively to keep the LCMS project on schedule and within budget as required by OMB Circular A-130.

After the project began to experience significant delays and cost overruns in 2006 and 2007, the Department did not commit additional full-time JMD employees to the project until February 2008, when it added an Application Lead to the project team to oversee the technical development of LCMS. Later in 2008, the Department added two JMD employees to the team – a Project Management Lead to oversee the project management of LCMS and a Chief Architect to coordinate data center related issues and perform risk and configuration management. However, in August 2008, the Deputy Project Manager left the LCMS Project Management Office. As of December 15, 2008, the Deputy position was not filled, leaving the LCMS Project Management Office staffed by only four full-time government employees.

The Department’s oversight of Computer Sciences Corporation was based partly on the performance incentive plan submitted by the Computer Sciences Corporation and approved by the Department. The Computer Sciences Corporation contract for the development and implementation of the LCMS was a time and materials, labor hour-contract with a performance incentive plan and fee structure. For a time and materials, labor hour-contract, the contractor bills for the specific time, materials, and labor used to produce the products or services. Under the terms of the contract, the Computer Sciences Corporation billed for 75 percent of its labor costs and the remaining 25 percent was allocated to an incentive pool. At the end of certain contract milestones, the Department evaluated the performance of the Computer Sciences Corporation based on
pre-established criteria, usually related to schedule compliance and quality of deliverables, and the Computer Sciences Corporation receives a percentage of the incentive pool based on the performance evaluations.

The Department’s use of the performance incentive plan process was not effective to ensure that the Computer Sciences Corporation met the schedule and budget requirement for the LCMS. From award of the contract in May 2006 through December 2008, the Department completed only two performance evaluations under the performance incentive plan of the Computer Sciences Corporation. No evaluation had been completed in the last 15 months of the period.

The Computer Sciences Corporation’s December 2006 performance incentive plan established 11 milestones for evaluation of its performance, as noted in Table 4.

TABLE 4: LCMS MILESTONES CONTAINED IN DECEMBER 2006
PERFORMANCE INCENTIVE PLAN

Milestone		Department’s Planned Acceptance Date
A	Contractor’s delivery and the Department’s acceptance of an Enterprise Functional Requirements Document, a Preliminary Design Document, and a Technical Architecture Document.	12/06/2006
B	Completion of development and configuration of an LCMS system ready for pilot testing in the EOUSA and USAOs.	03/30/2007
C	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the EOUSA and USAOs.	07/15/2007
D	Attainment of Initial Operating Capability within the EOUSA and USAOs that results when the first site goes online.	09/21/2007
E	Completion of LCMS fielding in the EOUSA and USAOs.	03/05/2008
F	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	09/04/2008
G	Attainment of Initial Operating Capability within the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	01/31/2009
H	Completion of LCMS fielding in the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	09/14/2009
I	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	01/15/2010
J	Attainment of Initial Operating Capability within the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	05/05/2010
K	Completion of LCMS fielding in the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	12/13/2010

The Department completed its first performance evaluation in December 2006. According to the Department’s December 2006 incentive fee determination for Milestone A, the Computer Sciences Corporation met the delivery schedule for this milestone and therefore received 100 percent of the incentive fee of $254,449 set aside for schedule performance. LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation’s quality of deliverables under Milestone A was acceptable after multiple reviews and corrections. Therefore, the Computer Sciences Corporation received about 89 percent of the incentive fee of $381,674 set aside for quality of deliverables.

In July 2007, the Department agreed to the Computer Sciences Corporation’s revised performance incentive plan schedule, which extended completion of Milestones B through E. However, Milestones F through K, which related to testing and completing the LCMS in the remaining six litigating divisions, did not change. In our opinion, it is unreasonable to expect that the Computer Sciences Corporation could delay completing the system in EOUSA and the USAOs by 8 months and still complete the system in the remaining 6 divisions by December 2010 as previously planned.

Table 5 shows the revision of Milestones B through E.

TABLE 5: REVISED LCMS MILESTONES CONTAINED IN
JULY 2007 PERFORMANCE INCENTIVE PLAN

Milestone		Department’s Planned Acceptance Date
A	Contractor’s delivery and the Department’s acceptance of an Enterprise Functional Requirements Document, a Preliminary Design Document, and a Technical Architecture Document.	12/06/2006
B	Contractor’s delivery and the Department’s acceptance of a draft and final Technical Deployment Plan, draft and final Initial Deployment Plan, draft and final Business Solutions Process, and Technical Configuration Specifications.	07/16/2007
C	Completion of development and configuration of an LCMS system ready for pilot testing in the EOUSA and USAOs.	04/04/2008
D	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the EOUSA and USAOs.	08/15/2008
E	Completion of LCMS fielding in the EOUSA and USAOs.	11/07/2008
F	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	09/04/2008
G	Attainment of Initial Operating Capability within the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	01/31/2009
H	Completion of LCMS fielding in the Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions.	09/14/2009
I	Completion of LCMS pilot testing in the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	01/15/2010
J	Attainment of Initial Operating Capability within the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	05/05/2010
K	Completion of LCMS fielding in the Criminal, Tax, and Antitrust Divisions.	12/13/2010

The Department performed its second performance evaluation in September 2007. According to the Department’s September 2007 incentive fee determination for Milestone B, the Computer Sciences Corporation completed the milestone on August 30, 2007, 33 business days after the planned milestone date of July 16, 2007. Therefore, the Computer Sciences Corporation received a 33 percent reduction in the incentive fee of $897,812 set aside for schedule performance under Milestone B. LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation’s quality of deliverables under Milestone B was lower than under Milestone A based on the Department’s evaluation of draft deliverables. Therefore, the Computer Sciences Corporation received about 84 percent of the incentive fee of $1,346,719 set aside for quality of deliverables.

As of December 15, 2008, the Computer Sciences Corporation had not completed Milestone C, which had been scheduled for completion in April 2008. A LCMS Project Management Office official told us that because of the extensive delays and problems with the quality of the deliverables during Milestone C, the Computer Sciences Corporation would receive a significantly reduced portion of the $1,389,924 incentive pool for Milestone C. A performance evaluation for Milestone C had been prepared in draft during December 2008 but, as of February 3, 2009, had not been presented to the Computer Sciences Corporation because Milestone C was not yet complete. Moreover, the Computer Sciences Corporation had not begun Milestone D, which was scheduled for completion by August 15, 2008, or Milestone E, which was scheduled for completion by November 7, 2008. The LCMS Project Management Office official told us that because the Computer Sciences Corporation had not yet completed Milestone C, the Department has not finalized any additional performance evaluations since September 2007 when Milestone B was completed.

We concluded that the completion of only two performance incentive evaluations during 31 months is not sufficient oversight to minimize delays and keep a major information technology project such as the LCMS on schedule and within budget. However, Department officials told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation would not permit more frequent oversight and denied them access to its interim performance data. The Computer Sciences Corporation took the position that, under a performance-based contract, completion of each milestone is the responsibility of the contractor and the government should not be involved in evaluating performance until the milestone has been completed. We asked Department officials if the Computer Sciences Corporation’s denials of performance data were documented and the officials said the denials were based on verbal conversations.

The Office of the CIO also performs several other routine oversight activities on the LCMS project. Monthly contract program reviews are held by the LCMS Project Manager and Computer Sciences Corporation Project Manager to review cost and schedule status. Monthly executive program reviews are held by the CIO to review the overall program status and management issues. Weekly project status meetings are held by the LCMS Project Manager and the Computer Sciences Corporation Project Manager to review the schedule status in detail. In addition, LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that they perform other oversight activities including review of the Computer Sciences Corporation’s outlines, rough drafts, and final deliverables.

The LCMS Project Management Office staff also stated that the office’s oversight was complicated by the turnover in Computer Sciences Corporation staff assigned to the LCMS project. The LCMS Project Management Office staff said that the 50 LCMS-related project positions had been filled by 168 Computer Sciences Corporation contractor staff members through February 3, 2009.

Notwithstanding the weekly and monthly review activities by the LCMS Project Management Office and in light of the turnover in Computer Sciences Corporation staff, we do not believe it is prudent for the Department to evaluate the Computer Sciences Corporation’s or any other contractor’s incentive performance only upon completion of major milestones. This is especially true when milestones are regularly extended, which in turn extends the time between performance evaluations. Extended periods between performance evaluations, such as those for the LCMS, allow critical performance deficiencies to continue for significant periods of time before corrective actions are taken, thus putting the project at risk for schedule and budget overruns.

On July 18, 2008, the Computer Sciences Corporation sent the Department a contract change proposal in which the Computer Sciences Corporation claimed that much of the delays in performance were attributable to Department actions, including the following.

• User Acceptance Testing was extended from 27 days to 5 months because of understaffing in the EOUSA during the requirements and design phases. The extended user acceptance testing caused delays throughout the rest of the project.
  
  
• The Department added data elements from the EOUSA’s existing case management system that created new rules and reports and increased the LCMS requirements from 507 to 580 (14 percent).
  
  
• The Department delayed systems integration testing because problems with Quality Center configuration resulted in extra labor for manual documentation of testing and reduced the primary contractor’s efficiency in the testing.
  
  
• The Department did not establish standards that defined the necessary quality of various documents required as deliverables.
  
  
• The Department lacked a change management process to evaluate changes and provide approval.
  
  
• The Department experienced staffing shortages and turnover in both the LCMS Project Management Office and the EOUSA that required the primary contractor to devote significant time to working with new people.
  
  
• The Rockville data center experienced problems including bad files and overwritten data that caused delays.

In December 2008 we discussed the Computer Sciences Corporation’s concerns with the CIO and his staff members. They told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation was attempting to shift blame for its poor performance to the government. The CIO told us that the Computer Sciences Corporation’s team managing the LCMS project lacked management expertise to effectively implement the project and that the Computer Sciences Corporation’s performance on the LCMS project was substantially deficient. In addition, the CIO told us that his office urged two changes in the Computer Sciences Corporation Project Manager position as a result of significant concerns about the Computer Sciences Corporation’s progress on the LCMS.

While it is clear to us that the Computer Sciences Corporation has had significant difficulty implementing the LCMS, we also believe the lack of more frequent government oversight and corrective actions also contributed to the delays in implementing the system.⁵

Cost Overruns

As the timeframe for project completion stretched out, estimated completion costs also escalated. Graph B depicts changes in estimated completion costs.

Source: LCMS Project Management Office Estimates

As demonstrated in Graph B, the December 2008 estimate of costs for the Computer Sciences Corporation to complete implementation of LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs is about $61 million.⁶ This exceeds the original estimate for completion of EOUSA and USAO implementation by about $26 million, about a 75-percent increase. Additionally, the December 2008 estimate to implement LCMS in the EOUSA and USAOs exceeds the original estimate for all seven litigating divisions by more than $18 million. Moreover, these costs are associated only with the Computer Sciences Corporation contract, and do not include other expenses such as the project management and technical advising contracts, government salaries, and expenses for the data center to maintain the database. The expenses incurred through December 2008 for these other expenses totaled about $11 million. As of January 13, 2009, the LCMS Project Management Office was working to estimate how much of these additional expenses will be needed to complete implementation in the EOUSA and USAOs. This will result in a total cost for implementing LCMS in the first litigating division of more than $72 million. According to the LCMS Project Manager, the currently approved funding may be enough to implement the LCMS only within the EOUSA and the USAOs, and the prospect of congressional approval of funding to continue development of the system for implementation in the other six litigating divisions is uncertain.

Because of the problems with the Computer Sciences Corporation, the LCMS Project Manager told us he no longer has an estimated cost for implementing LCMS in the remaining six litigating divisions.

Litigating Division Concerns

As noted previously, because of development difficulties, work related to the six other litigating divisions was stopped. At the time of the work stoppage for the six divisions, the effort related to these divisions was primarily limited to the initial requirements gathering. Because of the significant delays in implementing the LCMS and the uncertainty of future funding for the LCMS, we believe the system is now at high risk of not meeting the needs of the other six litigating divisions as initially designed.

The Computer Sciences Corporation contract for development of the LCMS was awarded in May 2006. During the first year of the contract, the Computer Sciences Corporation was required to conduct a business process assessment. As part of this assessment, the Computer Sciences Corporation performed a cross-component review to determine the operating environment for each litigating division and how it would affect the LCMS. A cross-component working group made up of representatives from all the litigating divisions and the Computer Sciences Corporation was established to conduct this review and to ensure the requirements of all the divisions were considered when developing the system. The review was completed in February 2007.

However, because of the schedule delays and cost overruns, the cross-component working group ceased operating in 2007, and all Computer Sciences Corporation-related LCMS work focused solely on the EOUSA and USAOs. A second cross-component working group effort consisting of LCMS Project Management Office staff and litigating division staff continued work on requirements planning for the litigating divisions through February 2008, at which time the effort ended. By ceasing all work on the cross-component issues, the resulting system will only meet the needs of the USAO. The LCMS Project Management Office staff told us that in order to meet the needs of the Stage 2 and 3 litigating divisions (see TABLE 1), a detailed requirements planning process will be required with each of the divisions. That process would include: (1) developing a full understanding of the business process for each division; (2) determining how each division uses its existing case management system to conduct business; and (3) identifying each division’s rules and requirements governing data entry, system access, and report development.

In November 2008 we interviewed officials from each of the six litigating divisions in Stages 2 and 3. We found that after the cross-component working group was disbanded, the LCMS Project Management Office did not keep the divisions informed of the progress of the system.

The Stage 2 division officials (Civil, Civil Rights, ENRD) told us that their divisions were operating on outdated systems that were no longer supported by the vendor. As a result, all three divisions are in need of a new case management system. However, due to a lack of updates from the LCMS Project Management Office, officials in these divisions told us they did not know when to expect a new case management system. Officials from all three divisions also told us they were concerned about the ability to maintain their existing systems long enough to wait for LCMS. Additionally, these officials were concerned that the LCMS would not meet all of their operational needs when implemented in their divisions. The concerns raised by the Stage 2 division officials included:

• adequacy of system access restrictions,
  
  
• thoroughness of integration between various system modules, and
  
  
• adequacy of the time-tracking module.

The Stage 3 division officials (CRM, TAX, ATR) told us that they were also unsure about the timeline for implementing the LCMS within their divisions. In contrast to the Stage 2 divisions, all of which need some type of new case management system, the Stage 3 division officials told us that they are content with their current systems. The officials said that they would be better off with their current system and do not want to convert to a system that they believe will not meet their operational needs. The concerns raised by the Stage 3 division officials included:

• the level of division control over system and ability to update the system in a timely manner for operational needs,
  
  
• lack of flexibility within the system to perform the needed tasks, and
  
  
• inability of the system to effectively eliminate duplication of records.

After we interviewed officials from the six Stage 2 and 3 divisions in November 2008, LCMS Project Management Office officials provided the divisions with an update of the project status in December 2008. The goal of these meetings was to provide the divisions a high-level update of the project’s status. According to officials from the six litigating divisions, the update was brief and did not provide any certainty as to when the requirements planning for their divisions would begin or how long it would be before the divisions would have a working LCMS system. Accordingly, the views that the division officials provided us in November 2008 did not change as a result of the December 2008 update briefing by the LCMS Project Management Office.

Because the main purpose of the LCMS is to develop an enterprise system for sharing case information among the Department’s seven litigating divisions, we believe that it is important for the Department to ensure that the seven litigating divisions are fully committed to and support the LCMS. We believe that without such commitment, and redefinition of the requirements for the remaining six litigating divisions, the project is at a much higher risk of failure.

Computer Sciences Corporation Response

The draft audit report was provided to Computer Sciences Corporation officials and we met with them in March 2009 to obtain their comments on the report. The officials told us that they did not disagree with the factual content of the report. The officials stated that the Department properly identified the workflow requirements for the LCMS, but did not effectively identify other requirements, particularly requirements related to the reporting aspects of the LCMS. The officials said that the Computer Sciences Corporation had to perform considerable reverse engineering to identify the business rules and requirements necessary to produce the LCMS reports requested by the Department. The officials also said that during the past 3 months the Department’s Project Management Office staff had improved management oversight of the project.

Recommendation

1. We recommend that the CIO reevaluate the viability of continuing towards implementation in the other seven litigating divisions. At a minimum, the reevaluation should consider whether:
   
   
• adequate funding will be made available to continue system development,
  
  
• the LCMS should be implemented in the National Security Division,
  
  
• the other six litigating divisions remain committed to implementation of the LCMS within their divisions,
  
  
• the system requirements for the remaining litigating divisions are appropriately identified and understood before further development,
  
  
• the defects identified from additional system integration and user testing are minimized, and
  
  
• controls are established to ensure that adequate government and contractor oversight will be performed on future development activities to minimize future schedule and cost overruns.