A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report details how the Department of Defense (DoD) still has only been able to meet 11 out of the 14 key requirements for its Federal Cloud Computing Strategy (FCCS).
These requirements came after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a June 2019 update on the (FCCS) that established these 14 requirements, which the (DoD) had agreed to work on.
The three requirements that DoD has still been lacking in have been some of the following areas:
- Conduct skills gap analysis for future skill and position requirements for cloud-based services, and where appropriate, equip existing staff with the additional skills and knowledge needed;
- Conduct regular evaluations of customer experience and user needs; and
- Execute communication plans regarding changes affecting employees.
According to the report “DoD has taken steps to develop an enterprise-wide application rationalization process but lacks a long-term implementation plan.”
The report ends with recommending 9 different actions that DoD, along with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, can take to reach the requirements put out by OMB. Some of those recommendations include the following.
- The Secretary of Defense should direct the CIO and department components to develop and execute a communication plan that will help employees understand the planned changes that will occur for the implementation of the department’s enterprise-wide cloud environment;
- The Secretary of Defense should direct the CIO to establish an enterprise-wide rationalization governance structure, identify and document all rationalization requirements in department policy, and determine the relevant information required on each application for rationalization and the means to collect it;
- The Secretary of the Air Force should direct the Air Force CIO to designate a unit within the component with responsibility for TBM implementation, provide additional guidance on TBM allocation of spending for cloud services to specific cost pools and towers, and to develop a process for assessing and improving the quality of TBM data; and
- The Secretary of the Army should direct the Army CIO to provide additional guidance on TBM allocation of spending for cloud services to specific cost pools and towers, and to develop a process for assessing and improving the quality of TBM data.
