DOD Systems Modernization: Maintaining Effective Communication Is
Needed to Help Ensure the Army's Successful Deployment of the	 
Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (08-SEP-08,	 
GAO-08-927R).							 
                                                                 
The Department of Defense (DOD) has had long-standing, serious	 
problems with its numerous military component-unique personnel	 
and pay systems, including accurately paying its military	 
personnel on time and monitoring and tracking them to, from, and 
within their duty stations. For example, in the early 1990s, Army
Reserve and National Guard troops received inaccurate or late pay
and benefits after serving in Operations Desert Shield and Desert
Storm. We previously reported that the lack of integration among 
DOD's multiple military personnel and pay systems, among other	 
things, caused these and similar errors. To address these and	 
other problems, in February 1998, DOD initiated a program to	 
design and implement the Defense Integrated Military Human	 
Resources System (DIMHRS). DIMHRS is intended to provide a joint,
integrated, standardized personnel and pay system for all	 
military components (including active and reserve components). In
November 2004, DOD accepted the design of the first phase of	 
DIMHRS for personnel and pay functions and then proceeded with	 
development of the system. Meanwhile, as we reported in 2006,	 
some Army Reserve and National Guard troops continued to receive 
inaccurate pay resulting in part from a lack of integration in	 
Army personnel and pay systems. Furthermore, personnel and pay	 
problems have been exacerbated by the hundreds of thousands of	 
military personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, whose	 
families depend on receiving accurate and timely pay, in addition
to DOD's need to track military personnel in and out of theater. 
DOD is concurrently working with the Army, Air Force, and Navy,  
but the Army is to be the first to deploy DIMHRS. Therefore, we  
focused our review on DOD's plans to deliver the system to the	 
Army for deployment. DOD has planned five DIMHRS deployment dates
for the Army with the most recent one scheduled in March 2009.	 
Four of the deployment dates were postponed--April 2006, April	 
2008, July 2008, and October 2008. As of April 2008, DOD moved	 
the October date to March 2009. DIMHRS uses software referred to 
as a commercial-off-the-shelf product. According to DIMHRS	 
program officials, including the Deputy Director of the Business 
Transformation Agency, the product will address all military	 
component requirements. In February 2005, we reported that	 
because DOD was not managing the DIMHRS program effectively,	 
including its requirements, it was at increased risk of not	 
delivering promised system capabilities and benefits on time.	 
Since our 2005 report, we have monitored DOD's progress in	 
managing the DIMHRS program under the authority of the		 
Comptroller General to conduct evaluations on his own initiative.
Specifically for this report, our objective was to determine to  
what extent DOD has effectively communicated the DIMHRS's	 
capabilities to the Army in order for the Army to prepare for	 
deployment of the system in March 2009. 			 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-927R					        
    ACCNO:   A84045						        
  TITLE:     DOD Systems Modernization: Maintaining Effective	      
Communication Is Needed to Help Ensure the Army's Successful	 
Deployment of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources	 
System								 
     DATE:   09/08/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Accountability					 
	     Defense capabilities				 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Military communication				 
	     Military pay					 
	     Military personnel 				 
	     Military systems analysis				 
	     Pay						 
	     Payroll systems					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Program management 				 
	     Reporting requirements				 
	     Standards						 
	     Systems conversions				 
	     Systems design					 
	     Systems evaluation 				 
	     Systems integration				 
	     Systems integrity					 
	     Military forces					 
	     Defense Integrated Military Human			 
	     Resources System					 
                                                                 

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GAO-08-927R

   

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GAO-08-927R: 

September 8, 2008: 

The Honorable Robert M. Gates:
The Secretary of Defense: 

Subject: DOD Systems Modernization: Maintaining Effective Communication 
Is Needed to Help Ensure the Army's Successful Deployment of the 
Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System: 

Dear Mr. Secretary: 

The Department of Defense (DOD) has had long-standing, serious problems 
with its numerous military component-unique personnel and pay systems, 
including accurately paying its military personnel on time and 
monitoring and tracking them to, from, and within their duty stations. 
For example, in the early 1990s, Army Reserve and National Guard troops 
received inaccurate or late pay and benefits after serving in 
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.[Footnote 1] We previously 
reported that the lack of integration among DOD's multiple military 
personnel and pay systems, among other things, caused these and similar 
errors.[Footnote 2] To address these and other problems, in February 
1998, DOD initiated a program to design and implement the Defense 
Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS). DIMHRS is intended 
to provide a joint, integrated, standardized personnel and pay system 
for all military components (including active and reserve components). 
In November 2004, DOD accepted the design of the first phase of DIMHRS 
for personnel and pay functions and then proceeded with development of 
the system. Meanwhile, as we reported in 2006,[Footnote 3] some Army 
Reserve and National Guard troops continued to receive inaccurate pay 
resulting in part from a lack of integration in Army personnel and pay 
systems. Furthermore, personnel and pay problems have been exacerbated 
by the hundreds of thousands of military personnel deployed to Iraq and 
Afghanistan, whose families depend on receiving accurate and timely 
pay, in addition to DOD's need to track military personnel in and out 
of theater. DOD is concurrently working with the Army, Air Force, and 
Navy, but the Army is to be the first to deploy DIMHRS. Therefore, we 
focused our review on DOD's plans to deliver the system to the Army for 
deployment. DOD has planned five DIMHRS deployment dates for the Army 
with the most recent one scheduled in March 2009. Four of the 
deployment dates were postponed--April 2006, April 2008, July 2008, and 
October 2008. As of April 2008, DOD moved the October date to March 
2009. The other services are to follow the Army's deployment, but their 
dates remain undetermined as of June 2008. In addition, DOD estimates 
the cost for DIMHRS through fiscal year 2009 to be approximately $1 
billion.[Footnote 4] 

DIMHRS uses software referred to as a commercial-off-the-shelf product. 
According to DIMHRS program officials, including the Deputy Director of 
the Business Transformation Agency, the product will address all 
military component requirements. The DIMHRS program office works with 
the components to make changes to their related business processes and 
adopt the commercial-off-the-shelf capabilities and processes as long 
as the changes do not result in inefficiencies or adversely affect 
mission or servicemembers and their families. 

In February 2005, we reported that because DOD was not managing the 
DIMHRS program effectively, including its requirements, it was at 
increased risk of not delivering promised system capabilities and 
benefits on time.[Footnote 5] In that report, we noted that the 
shortcomings in DOD's efforts to effectively manage DIMHRS requirements 
were attributed to a number of causes, including DOD's long-standing 
cultural resistance to departmentwide solutions. These shortcomings 
left DOD without adequate assurance that the requirements would 
accurately reflect the end users', including the Army's, needs. Since 
our 2005 report, we have monitored DOD's progress in managing the 
DIMHRS program under the authority of the Comptroller General to 
conduct evaluations on his own initiative. Specifically for this 
report, our objective was to determine to what extent DOD has 
effectively communicated the DIMHRS's capabilities to the Army in order 
for the Army to prepare for deployment of the system in March 2009. 

To conduct our work, we reviewed and analyzed relevant documents, such 
as the system requirements documents,[Footnote 6] the Army feasibility 
assessment of DIMHRS and requirements review, schedule, acquisition 
strategy, minutes from governance meetings, program status reports, and 
prior GAO reports. To augment our review of these documents, we 
interviewed officials from DOD's Business Transformation Agency, which 
is responsible for, among other things, leading and coordinating 
business transformation efforts, such as the DIMHRS program, across the 
department; the Enterprise Program Management Office-DIMHRS (called the 
DIMHRS program office in this report), which is responsible for, among 
other things, acquiring and implementing DIMHRS; and the Office of 
Personnel and Readiness Information Management, which, among other 
things, provides functional oversight for Human Resources Management 
and ensures that all requirements are consistent with the enterprise 
requirements. We also interviewed DIMHRS program officials from the 
Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Department of the Army. 
We conducted this performance audit from January 2007 to July 2008 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objective. 

Summary: 

DOD has taken some recent steps to improve communications with the Army 
about DIMHRS's capabilities in an effort to better prepare the Army for 
deployment of the system in March 2009. However, Army officials still 
have some concerns about the extent to which Army requirements are 
being incorporated into DIMHRS. In addition, DOD has not established a 
clear, well-defined process for maintaining effective communications to 
better prepare the Army to deploy DIMHRS. Effective communication is a 
key federal internal control standard that calls for communications to 
constantly flow down, across, and up the organization to help it 
achieve all of its objectives.[Footnote 7] Such communication would 
improve the Army's understanding of what the system will deliver thus 
enabling the Army to better design and implement effective business 
processes to work with DIMHRS. The Army has had problems receiving 
assurance from DOD about the extent to which its requirements would be 
included in DIMHRS. For example, in September 2007, when the Army 
compared versions 3.0 and 3.1 of the system requirements document, it 
noted that DOD's DIMHRS program office had not effectively communicated 
with the Army the rationale or negotiated the acceptance of the Army's 
requirements that were dropped, changed, or both, which were agreed 
upon in version 3.0. During the Army's review of version 3.1, it 
identified and submitted 717 issues for DOD to resolve. Furthermore, 
when communicating changes for version 3.1, the format made it 
difficult for the Army to perform its comparative analysis. Army 
officials said that when the DIMHRS program office does not effectively 
communicate to them the differences between its requirements and the 
system, they have difficulty conducting a gap analysis between the 
system's planned capabilities and their own requirements. The gap 
analysis forms the basis upon which the Army can determine whether it 
needs to develop or adjust its business processes prior to deploying 
DIMHRS. 

DOD recently took steps to improve its communications with the Army 
about DIMHRS's capabilities and its impact on Army requirements. For 
example, in May 2008, the DIMHRS program office began to meet with Army 
officials to discuss the development of a formal process of delivering 
and adjudicating the documented updates to the design; this includes 
the differences between the Army's requirements--documented need of 
what a particular product or service should be or do--and the DIMHRS's 
requirements, which are documented in the system requirements document. 
According to Army officials, with respect to version 3.2, they 
identified 311 issues with 98 issues remaining in July 2008, which the 
DIMHRS program office is working to resolve. Additionally, in April 
2008, the DIMHRS program office shared more detailed information about 
DIMHRS's capabilities through activities, such as demonstrations of the 
system capabilities. Moreover, the Deputy Director of the Business 
Transformation Agency stated that moving the deployment date to March 
2009 allowed the DIMHRS program office and the Army the time to 
communicate about DIMHRS's capabilities. Although these steps have been 
taken, DOD has not developed and documented a clearly defined process 
for maintaining effective communications of the differences between 
DIMHRS's capabilities and Army requirements. Without a clearly defined 
process for maintaining effective communications, the Army may not be 
effectively prepared to deploy the system when scheduled, and DOD may 
deliver a system that will require extensive and expensive investments. 
Therefore, we recommend that you direct the Deputy Secretary of Defense 
to develop a clearly defined process for maintaining effective 
communications of the differences between DIMHRS's capabilities and 
Army requirements to help ensure that the Army will have adequate time 
to prepare for deployment of the system. In commenting on a draft of 
this report, the department concurred with this recommendation. The 
department's comments are discussed in detail in a later section of 
this report. DOD's written comments are reprinted in enclosure I. 

Background: 

Following reports of pay issues, in late 1995, the Under Secretary of 
Defense for Acquisition and Technology established a Defense Science 
Board Task Force on Military Personnel Information Management to advise 
the Secretary of Defense on the best strategy to support military 
personnel and pay functions. In its August 1996 report, the task force 
concluded that "the present situation, in which the Services develop 
and maintain multiple Service-unique military personnel and pay 
systems, has led to significant functional shortcomings (particularly 
in the joint arena) and excessive costs for system development and 
maintenance for the Department of Defense." The task force recommended 
that DOD "move to a single, all-Service and all-component, fully 
integrated personnel and pay system, with common core software." 

In response to the task force's recommendation, DOD initiated the 
DIMHRS program in February 1998. DIMHRS will be Web based and uses a 
commercial-off-the-shelf product. DIMHRS is intended to be a joint, 
integrated, standardized personnel and pay system for all components of 
the military services, including active and reserve components. 
According to DOD, the program will provide improved processes and 
deliver timely and accurate pay and benefits to all servicemembers and 
their families, anytime and anywhere. Specifically, DIMHRS is intended 
to provide (1) accurate and timely personnel data, (2) standard data 
for comparison across the services and other components, (3) tracking 
information on reservists for both pay and service credit, (4) tracking 
information on military personnel in and out of theater, and (5) 
integrated personnel and pay functions. 

The acquisition of DIMHRS was interrupted from July 2005 through 
December 2005 in order to assess its feasibility. In 2005, DOD had 
planned for the Army to deploy DIMHRS in the third quarter of fiscal 
year 2006 and the other services to deploy it in the fourth quarter of 
fiscal year 2007. The department had estimated that the program would 
cost $601 million from inception through fiscal year 2009. However, due 
to concerns raised by the military services, in July 2005, the Deputy 
Secretary of Defense directed a strategic pause whereby the military 
services discontinued developmental activities for DIMHRS in order to 
determine the continued viability of the DIMHRS program. According to 
DIMHRS officials--including the Director of Human Capital Management 
Integration, Office of the Under Secretary of the Army--the Army, the 
Air Force, and the Navy completed their feasibility assessments of 
DIMHRS using the Army's configured solution as the baseline. Based on 
the results of the Army's assessment completed in October 2005, the 
Deputy Secretary of Defense in December 2005 directed Army program 
officials to proceed with the acquisition of DIMHRS as the first 
military service to implement the program. 

Initially, DOD planned to acquire and deploy DIMHRS in three 
functionality-based phases: (1) military personnel and payroll, (2) 
military manpower, and (3) military training. However, after the 
strategic pause, DOD planned to acquire and deploy DIMHRS in one phase, 
which would include functionality for military personnel and payroll. 
DOD officials stated that this functionality would also include 
essential manpower and training requirements. 

In addition, during the Army's feasibility assessment of DIMHRS, the 
Army identified business processes that needed to be integrated with, 
or adapted to, the capabilities of DIMHRS. In order to define, revise, 
and validate the designs of these business processes, the Army entered 
the design, development, and analysis phase--intended to collect the 
complete set of personnel and pay requirements necessary for the Army 
to deploy DIMHRS. This phase was part of the Army Requirements Review-
-intended to ensure that the DIMHRS design adequately covers the Army's 
requirements. During the design, development, and analysis phase, Army 
focus groups reviewed current Army business processes to identify the 
requirements that would be used to define the revised business 
processes as part of DIMHRS. Specifically, the Army analyzed 129 
business processes and documented gaps between Army personnel and pay 
processes and the DIMHRS application. The Army DIMHRS program office 
delivered the Army documentation that was captured during the design, 
development, and analysis phase incrementally to the developer/ 
integrator contractor of DIMHRS for consideration. The contractor 
redeveloped the Army's detailed business processes into designs for 
each individual business process. These designs were sent to the Army 
for review. The Army DIMHRS program office has accepted the design 
packages documenting the incorporation of baseline Army requirements 
into DIMHRS. According to DOD, a key product was developed during the 
design, development, and analysis processï¿½the system requirements 
document. This document is broken down into individual business 
processes that must be in place within DIMHRS for the system to meet 
the requirements specified in the DIMHRS Operational Requirements 
Document.[Footnote 8] 

In February 2005,[Footnote 9]we reported that DOD faced significant 
management challenges with DIMHRS, a major system acquisition program 
that is expected to lead to major changes in the processing of military 
personnel and pay. Until these challenges were addressed, the system 
was at increased risk of not providing expected capabilities and 
benefits on time and within budget. We made several recommendations 
aimed at improving the department's oversight of the program with which 
DOD generally agreed, and DOD stated that it was already performing 
some of the best practices contained in our recommendations. Since our 
2005 report, we testified in November 2006 that, among other things, in 
response to our recommendation to establish an integrated governance 
structure, DOD had established a steering committee that includes 
representatives from the services.[Footnote 10] 

Figure 1 depicts a chronology of events for the DIMHRS program. 

Figure 1: Chronology of Key Events for the DIMHRS Program: 

[See PDF for image] 

This figure illustrates the chronology of key events for the DIMHRS 
Program, as follows: 

Date: February 1998; 
Event: DOD initiated the DIMHRS program. 

Date: October 2003; 
Event: The DIMHRS program office approved version 1.0 of the system 
requirements document[A]. 

Date: March 2004; 
Event: DOD established a baseline version of detailed requirements and 
provided it to the developer/integrator contractor. 

Date: July 2005-December 2005; 
Event: Deputy Secretary of Defense directed a strategic pause whereby 
the military services discontinued developmental activities for DIMHRS 
in order to determine the continued viability of the DIMHRS program. 

Date: December 2005; 
Event: Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum stating "DIMHRS 
appears to be a viable solution to the department's personnel and pay 
problems;" the strategic pause ended and program resumed. 

Date: February 2006; 
Event: The DIMHRS program approves version 2.01 of the system 
requirements document. 

Date: September 2006; 
Event: Army completed its requirements review. 

Date: July 2007; 
Event: The DIMHRS program office approved version 3.0 of the system 
requirements document. 

Date: August 2007; 
Event: The DIMHRS program office conditionally approved version 3.1 of 
the system requirements document. 

Date: April 2008; 
Event: Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the Army's deployment date 
to change from October 2008 to March 2009. 

[A] The system requirements document is broken down into individual 
business processes that must be in place within DIMHRS for the system 
to meet the requirements specified in the DIMHRS Operational 
Requirements Document. 

[End of figure] 

DOD Has Recently Taken Some Steps to Share DIMHRS Capabilities with the 
Army but Has Not Established a Clearly Defined Process for Maintaining 
Effective Communications: 

DOD does not have a clearly defined process to routinely communicate 
with the Army about the extent to which the Army's requirements-- 
documented need of what a particular product or service should be or 
do--will be incorporated into DIMHRS, although DOD has improved some 
aspects of its communications recently. Effective communication is a 
key federal internal control standard that calls for communications to 
constantly flow down, across, and up the organization to help it 
achieve all of its objectives.[Footnote 11] Standards encourage 
maintaining effective communication throughout an organization. DOD's 
Enterprise Program Management Office for DIMHRS, also known as the 
DIMHRS program office,[Footnote 12] developed the DIMHRS project 
management plan, which states that the DIMHRS Program Manager is 
responsible for ensuring required liaison activities are accomplished 
with stakeholders. This could include ensuring that the DIMHRS program 
office effectively communicates the system capabilities of DIMHRS with 
the Army. Such communication would facilitate the Army's understanding 
of what the system will deliver thus enabling the Army to better design 
and implement effective business processes to work with DIMHRS. 

The Army has had problems receiving assurance from DOD about the extent 
to which its requirements would be included in DIMHRS. DOD has 
submitted versions 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2 of the system requirements 
document (e.g., the document that captures the business processes that 
must be in place within DIMHRS for the system to meet requirements 
specified in the DIMHRS Operational Requirements Document) to the Army 
for review. For example, in September 2007, when the Army compared 
versions 3.0 and 3.1 of the system requirements document, it noted that 
the DIMHRS program office had not effectively communicated with the 
Army the rationale or negotiated acceptance of the Army's requirements 
that were dropped, changed, or both and were agreed upon in version 
3.0. During the Army's review of version 3.1, it identified 717 issues 
and submitted them to the DIMHRS program office to be resolved. 
According to the Army, a few of the issues it identified in September 
2007 remain unresolved in version 3.1 as of July 2008. 

In addition, when the DIMHRS program office communicated changes in 
DIMHRS requirements in version 3.1 to the Army, the Army had difficulty 
tracking those changes between versions 3.0 and 3.1 because the 
information was provided in a format that made it difficult for the 
Army to extract the information needed to perform its comparative 
analysis. DOD's developer/integrator contractor that manages the system 
requirements and changes between the various versions of the system 
requirements document uses a requirements management tool, which 
facilitates its ability to track changes between the various versions 
of the system requirements document as the system requirements are 
changed over time. However, when the DIMHRS program office provided the 
information derived from this tool to the Army, the Army received the 
information in a format that made it difficult for the Army to extract 
the information it needed to compare changes to its requirements. The 
Army tracked thousands of requirements manually between versions 3.0 
and 3.1 of the system requirements document. Army officials said that 
this effort took time and may not have been accurate or comprehensive. 
Subsequently, the DIMHRS program office sent a summary of the changes 
to the Army; however, by the time the Army received the summary of 
changes, it had already completed its comparative analysis of them. 
Army officials said that if the DIMHRS program office had provided 
timely access to the summary of changes, they could have performed the 
analysis with 100 percent certainty. According to Army officials, when 
the DIMHRS program office does not enable the Army to understand the 
differences between the Army's requirements and the system, the Army 
has difficulty conducting a gap analysis--determining the difference 
between what is needed and what is available--between the system's 
planned capabilities and its requirements. The Army relies on this gap 
analysis to form the basis upon which it can determine whether it needs 
to develop or adjust its business processes prior to deploying DIMHRS. 

In April 2008, after the program's schedule was revised and approved, 
the DIMHRS program office took steps to improve its communications with 
the Army about DIMHRS's capabilities and its impact on Army 
requirements. Specifically, the Deputy Director of the Business 
Transformation Agency stated that moving the deployment date to March 
2009 allowed the DIMHRS program office and the Army the time to 
communicate about DIMHRS's capabilities and the impact the change in 
deployment date has on Army's preparation for deploying DIMHRS, 
including the Army's requirements. As part of its communication 
efforts, in April 2008, the DIMHRS program office provided the Army 
with demonstrations of the system capabilities. These demonstrations 
alleviated some of the Army's uncertainty about DIMHRS by giving it 
more access to the functionality of DIMHRS through activities such as 
"Try DIMHRS" and "See DIMHRS" demonstrations.[Footnote 13] The DIMHRS 
Program Manager stated that these activities were not intended to be 
comprehensive because DIMHRS was still under development at that point 
in time. 

In addition, according to Army officials, in May 2008, the DIMHRS 
program office began to meet with Army officials to discuss the 
development of a formal process of delivering and adjudicating the 
documented updates to the design; this included the differences between 
the Army's requirements and the DIMHRS's requirements, which are 
documented in the system requirements document. In February 2008, when 
the DIMHRS program office released version 3.2 of the system 
requirements document to the Army, the Army identified 311 issues with 
98 issues remaining in July 2008, which the DIMHRS program office is 
working to resolve. According to DIMHRS program office officials, 
during its review of version 3.2 with the Army, they discussed the fact 
that the notification process for changes made to the system 
requirements document needed to be improved. The DIMHRS program office 
stated that it is modifying the process to ensure that the services 
receive formal notification of documented changes whenever the changes 
impact system requirements by preparing and sending out a summary of 
the changes to the services. Although DOD is working to improve its 
communications of DIMHRS's capabilities, it has not developed and 
documented a clearly defined process for maintaining effective 
communications of the differences between DIMHRS's capabilities and 
Army requirements. 

According to the DIMHRS program office, the deployment date for DIMHRS 
was changed from October 2008 to March 2009 primarily because it had 
not conducted adequate testing of the system's performance on payroll 
processing. However, the Army raised several concerns, including (1) 
whether DOD will effectively communicate changes to system requirements 
and provide the Army with information that helps it determine the gaps 
between its requirements and DIMHRS's capabilities and (2) the lack of 
timely communication of the summary information derived from the 
requirements management tool, which would facilitate the Army's ability 
to identify changes needed to adapt its business processes and 
adequately prepare for DIMHRS. DOD does not have a clearly defined 
process that ensures effective communication will be maintained 
throughout the process for deploying the system. Having such a process 
would help ensure that the Army has a better understanding of the 
differences between its requirements and the system. Without addressing 
these weaknesses, deployment of DIMHRS may result in a system that will 
require extensive and expensive investments. 

Conclusions: 

DOD planned for the Army to deploy DIMHRS over 2 years ago, and has 
postponed deployment four times with deployment now scheduled for March 
2009. Although DOD has taken steps to improve its communication of 
DIMHRS requirements to the Army, the Army continues to have concerns, 
including a lack of (1) assurance that Army requirements are covered in 
DIMHRS and (2) timely access to summary information on system 
requirements changes. In addition, it is too early to determine if DOD 
will continue to communicate with the Army about the differences 
between DIMHRS's capabilities and the Army requirements since DOD only 
began making improvements in April 2008 and has not established a 
clearly defined and documented process for maintaining this 
communication. Without effective communication, the Army has difficulty 
performing the gap analyses needed to determine which business 
processes to develop or adjust as it prepares for deployment of DIMHRS. 
If the Army does not have system information in time to adjust its 
business processes, the Army may not be prepared to deploy the system 
or may deploy it prematurely, which could affect servicemembers' pay. 
DOD's efforts to improve its communications with the Army regarding the 
DIMHRS program's system capabilities does not include clearly defining 
and documenting a process that maintains effective communications of 
the differences between DIMHRS's capabilities and Army requirements. 
DOD has committed the Army to deploy DIMHRS in March 2009 as a result 
of postponing its October 2008 date. However, without DOD establishing 
a clearly defined process for maintaining effective, timely 
communications, the Army may not be prepared to deploy the system when 
scheduled, and DOD may deliver a system that will require extensive and 
expensive investments. 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

To help address the Army's needs and minimize extensive and expensive 
fixes to DIMHRS, we recommend that you direct the Deputy Secretary of 
Defense to develop and document a clearly defined process for 
maintaining effective communications of the differences between 
DIMHRS's capabilities and Army requirements to help ensure that the 
Army will have adequate time to prepare for deployment of the system. 

Agency Comments: 

The department concurred with our recommendation that the Deputy 
Secretary of Defense develop and document a clearly defined process for 
maintaining effective communications of the differences between 
DIMHRS's capabilities and Army requirements to help ensure that the 
Army will have adequate time to prepare for deployment of the system. 
In response to this recommendation, DOD stated in its comments that as 
the focus of the DIMHRS program shifts from application development to 
deployment, a recently formed Tiger Team--which is composed of 
representatives from the Business Transformation Agency, the Army, and 
the Defense Finance and Accounting Service--will, among other things, 
bolster the department's current communication efforts and assist with 
the Army's preparedness for DIMHRS deployment as well as the service 
delivery model after deployment. This will further enhance the 
department's communication efforts and will encourage the prompt 
resolution of issues that emerge due to potential differences between 
DIMHRS's capabilities and Army requirements. The process described 
above is captured in a draft charter for the Tiger Team that will be 
staffed, and the charter will be presented to the Deputy Secretary of 
Defense no later than the end of System Acceptance Testing for DIMHRS. 
DOD's written comments are reprinted in enclosure I. 

We are sending copies of this report to the House and Senate Armed 
Services and Appropriations Committees; House Committee on Government 
Reform; Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs; the Director, Office 
of Management and Budget; and the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and 
Air Force. We will also make copies available to others on request. In 
addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site 
at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

Should you or your staff have any questions on the matters discussed in 
this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3604 or [email protected]. 
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who 
made key contributions to this report are listed in enclosure II. 

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Brenda S. Farrell:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 

Enclosures - 2: 

Enclosure I: 

Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Office Of The Under Secretary Of Defense: 
Acquisition Technology And Logistics: 
3000 Defense Pentagon: 
Washington, DC 20301-3000: 

August 29, 2008: 

Ms. Brenda S. Farrell: 
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Farrell: 

This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft 
report, GAO-08-927R, "DOD Systems Modernization: Maintaining Effective 
Communication Is Needed to Help Ensure the Army's Successful Deployment 
of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System," dated 
August 5, 2008 (GAO Code 350927). Detailed comments on the report 
recommendations are enclosed. 

The Department concurs with GAO's recommendation. Maintaining effective 
communications with the Army and other Components is important to the 
successful deployment of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resource 
System (DIMHRS) and in ensuring that there is adequate time for the 
Services to prepare for deployment. The Department has taken action to 
realign the governance structure and processes as the focus of the 
program shills from program development to system deployment, which 
will bolster communications efforts with the Army going forward and 
will encourage the prompt resolution of emerging issues. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Paul A. Brinkley: 
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Business Transformation): 

Enclosure: As stated: 

GAO Draft Report Dated August 5, 2008: 
GAO-08-927R (GAO Code 350927): 

"DOD Systems Modernization: Maintaining Effective Communication Is 
Needed To Help Ensure The Army's Successful Deployment Of The Defense 
Integrated Military Human Resources System" 

Department Of Defense Comments To The GAO Recommendation 

Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Deputy Secretary of Defense to develop and document a 
clearly defined process for maintaining effective communications of the 
differences between Defense Integrated Military Human Resources 
System's capabilities and Army requirements to help ensure that the 
Army will have adequate time to prepare for deployment of the system. 

DOD Response: Concur. The Department concurs that maintaining effective 
communications with the Services is important to the successful 
deployment of the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System 
(DIMHRS) program and in ensuring there is adequate time for the 
Services to prepare for deployment. To that end, the Enterprise Program 
Management Office and the Services have worked closely together 
throughout the program's development. As development of the program was 
completed, the DIMHRS functionality that had come on-line was 
demonstrated to the Army through a "See/Try DIMHRS" program. In turn, 
the Army has a robust internal communication and change management 
program in place to ensure that they have adequate time to prepare for 
DIMHRS deployment. Additionally, as the focus of the program shifts 
from application development to deployment, a recently-formed "Tiger 
Team" will bolster the Department's current communications efforts and 
assist with the Army's preparedness for DIMHRS Go-Live as well as the 
service delivery model after Go-Live. The Tiger Team, which is composed 
of representatives from the Business Transformation Agency (BTA), Army, 
and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), will examine 
operational readiness from a holistic business point of view, 
incorporating elements of people, process, and technology for the Hire-
to-Retire end-to-end business process. This will further enhance the 
Department's communication efforts and will encourage the prompt 
resolution of issues that emerge due to potential differences between 
DIMHRS' capabilities and Army requirements. The Tiger Team will report 
to a Senior Executive Level Governance Board, which will expedite 
resolution of issues, direct resources towards resolution of gaps that 
the team identifies, and will closely monitor Army's deployment 
readiness as the DIMHRS Go-Live date approaches. The process described 
above is captured in a draft Charter that will be staffed and presented 
to the Deputy Secretary of Defense no later than the end of System 
Acceptance Testing for DIMHRS. 

[End of section] 

Enclosure II: 

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or [email protected]: 

Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Grace Coleman, Karen N. 
Harms, Susannah Hawthorne, LaToya King, Rebecca Shea, Matthew Spiers, 
Robin Wagner, Jose Watkins, and Angela Watson made key contributions to 
this report. 

[End of section] 

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http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-322T]. Washington, D.C.: 
February 17, 2005. 

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31, 2005. 

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http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-911]. Washington, D.C.: August 
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Military Pay: Army Reserve Soldiers Mobilized to Active Duty 
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-990T]. Washington, D.C.: July 
20, 2004. 

Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty 
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-413T]. Washington, D.C.: 
January 28, 2004. 

Military Pay: Army National Guard Personnel Mobilized to Active Duty 
Experienced Significant Pay Problems. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-89]. Washington, D.C.: 
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Financial Management: Defense's System for Army Military Payroll Is 
Unreliable. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-93-
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[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] For the purposes of this report, Army refers to active Army. 

[2] GAO, Financial Management: Defense's System for Army Military 
Payroll Is Unreliable, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-93-32] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 1993). 

[3] GAO, Military Pay: Inadequate Controls for Stopping Overpayments of 
Hostile Fire and Hardship Duty Pay to Over 200 Sick or Injured Army 
National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers Assigned to Fort Bragg, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-384R] (Washington, 
D.C.: Apr. 27, 2006). 

[4] According to DOD, as of March 31, 2008, it had spent approximately 
$766 million on the program, and it estimates spending an additional 
$286 million through fiscal year 2009. It does not include costs 
incurred by the Air Force from October 2007 through March 2008, the 
Marine Corps from fiscal year 2007 through March 2008, and the Navy 
since program inception. 

[5] GAO, DOD Systems Modernization: Management of Integrated Military 
Human Capital Program Needs Additional Improvements, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-189] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 
11, 2005). 

[6] The system requirements document, also known as the system 
subsystem specification document, is broken down into individual 
business processes that must be in place within DIMHRS. 

[7] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C. November 1999). 

[8] The Operational Requirements Document is a tool used by managers 
responsible for defining system capabilities needed to satisfy the 
mission needs of DIMHRS. This document is intended to guide the scope 
of the DIMHRS program. 

[9] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-189]. 

[10] GAO, Defense Business Transformation: A Comprehensive Plan, 
Integrated Efforts, and Sustained Leadership Are Needed to Assure 
Success, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-229T] 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov.16, 2006). 

[11] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[12] The DIMHRS program office is responsible for, among other things, 
acquiring and implementing DIMHRS. 

[13] The DIMHRS program office developed (1) an instructor-led lab 
called "Try DIMHRS" that allows Army personnel to practice hands-on 
navigation through DIMHRS to conduct routine Army human resources 
functions and (2) a weekly event using Defense Connect Online 
technology called "See DIMHRS" that allows personnel to view Army human 
resources instructor-led scenarios with explanations over the Web. 

[End of section] 

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