GAO: DOD EA unevenly implemented

While the Defense Department has undertaken the process of mapping its processes to an information architecture blueprint, its approach has been uneven, according to a report issued last week by the General Accounting Office.

The report, "Systems Modernization: Improvements to Enterprise Architecture Development and Implementation Efforts Needed," was completed for the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and management support.

GAO found that in the Defense Department's urgency to complete an enterprise architecture, it isn't undertaking some of the necessary processes.

As a result the Defense Department is in danger of implementing an architecture that may be limited in scope and may not be able to support modernization efforts. It also hasn't developed an independent quality assurance process, the report found.

"This stove piped decision-making process has contributed to the department's current complex, error-prone systems environment. This deeply embedded cultural resistance to a more holistic decision-making process is a substantial risk to successful development and implementation of the enterprise architecture," the report said.

Among the actions the Defense Departments should take are marketing the enterprise architecture initiatives better to the services and establishing review boards.