FDsys Status Report: Over Budget, Behind Schedule, Scope of Migration Reduced and GPO Focused on Fixing Deployed System

By the end of FY 2010 the first phase of the FDsys program will be substantially over budget, from an original cost of $16 million to an estimated cost of $42 million for contractor support. The project is well behind schedule. Only the first of three phases of "Release 1" scheduled for completion by the Fall of 2009 has been deployed and that phase is incomplete. Instead of the planned 55 collections, the GPO is now migrated only 42 collections from GPO Access to FDsys. There is an on-going problem with the FAST search product that will require changes to accommodate the growth in the system. The GPO is focusing more on fixing and upgrading a deployed system than on building the final system.

These are some of the findings of the Federal Digital System (FDsys) Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) – Tenth Quarter Report on Risk Management, Issues, and Traceability Report Number 10­-05, "IV&V Risk Management, Issues, And Traceability Report. Free Government Information reports:

There are some positive things. Much has been accomplished. Twenty-five of the most complex collections have been transferred from GPO Access to FDsys. The project managed to incorporate a significant design change during implementation to accommodate "Collections with numerous granules." The project also was able to create a new capability to support public access to FDsys information via the Data.gov website.

But these accomplishments are overshadowed by the numerous problems that the report documents. Even the already-deployed system is apparently overwhelmed with problems. The report documents 232 problems that adversely affect the accomplishment of an operational or mission­-essential capability and notes that the many unresolved problems with the system create "a serious risk that the overall goals for FDsys ... will take much longer and require significantly more funding to achieve."

For additional details and analysis, see Free Government Information's  The State of FDsys and the Future of the FDLP post. [JH]