FITARA goals cannot be achieved through policies and reporting alone. OMB must also address the barriers to commercial IT standards, best practices and innovations not visible to the traditional Federal IT Supplier base and FFRDCs. A 7 year root cause analysis of some 40 past studies and 30 major program failures revealed the hidden contributors to the primary causes that led to FITARA;
Antiquated waterfall acquisition processes developed and maintained by our FFRDCs
Flawed requirements and market research that obscures commercially available IT solutions that would provide lowest risk and life-cycle cost
Unfettered conflicts of interests by contractors working within the acquisition SDLC with a vested interests in outcomes
Lack of metrics for measuring both value and risk of implementation.
These challenges can be addressed with minimal effort by enforcing existing rules of law;
FAR Part 35 that restricts FFRDCs from competing with industry or developing material solutions
Clinger Cohen Act that requires streamlining of IT Acquisition Process, favoring COTS over GOTS and adoption of commercial best practices
FITARA goals cannot be achieved through policies and reporting alone. OMB must also address the barriers to commercial IT standards, best practices and innovations not visible to the traditional Federal IT Supplier base and FFRDCs. A 7 year root cause analysis of some 40 past studies and 30 major program failures revealed the hidden contributors to the primary causes that led to FITARA;
These challenges can be addressed with minimal effort by enforcing existing rules of law;