Modernizing Federal Employee Retirement Systems
- OPM is undertaking its Retirement Systems Modernization (RSM) program to modernize the paper-intensive processes and antiquated information systems it uses to support the retirement of civilian federal employees.
- This modernization program is important because OPM estimates a growing volume of retirement processing over the next several years as increasing numbers of federal employees become retirement eligible.
- However, the agency’s management of this initiative in areas that are important to successful deployment of new systems has not ensured that system components will perform as intended.
- For example, OPM has not addressed weaknesses in its approaches to testing system components and managing system defects to ensure the new system components will perform as intended.
- OPM has also yet to develop a reliable program cost estimate and the measurement baseline against which program progress can be determined.
^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done
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Ensure that (1) sufficient resources are provided to fully test functionality, (2) actions for mitigating the risks inherent in concurrent testing are identified, (3) test results verify that all system components perform as expected, and (4) test activities and results are subjected to independent verification and validation.
Highlights of GAO-08-345 (PDF) - Monitor and review defined benefits technology solution defects to ensure all urgent and high-priority defects are resolved prior to system deployment and that the resolution of urgent and high-priority defects is subjected to independent verification and validation.
Highlights of GAO-08-345 (PDF) - Develop a revised RSM cost estimate that addresses the weaknesses identified in this briefing, and task an independent verification and validation contractor with reviewing the process used to develop the estimate and assessing the reliability of the resulting estimate.
Highlights of GAO-08-345 (PDF) - Establish a basis for effective use of earned value management by validating the RSM performance measurement baseline through a program-level integrated baseline review, and task an independent verification and validation contractor with reviewing the process used to develop the baseline and assessing the reliability of the performance measurement baseline.
Highlights of GAO-08-345 (PDF)
^ Back to topKey Reports
- Office of Personnel Management: Retirement Modernization Planning and Management Shortcomings Need to Be Addressed
- GAO-09-529, April 21, 2009
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 46 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
- Comments on the Office of Personnel Management's February 20, 2008 Report to Congress Regarding the Retirement Systems Modernization
- GAO-08-576R, March 28, 2008
- Summary (HTML) Full Report (PDF, 9 pages) Accessible Text
- Office of Personnel Management: Improvements Needed to Ensure Successful Retirement Systems Modernization
- GAO-08-345, January 31, 2008
- Summary (HTML) Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 68 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
