General Accountability Office

(GAO)

Information Technology Cost Estimation Agencies Need to Address Significant Weakness in Policies and Practices Read full text in English

2012 report GAO-12-629

To estimate reliable cost for the sucess of an IT program by providing the basis for the informed decision making and realistic budget information. To assess the extent to which selected departments and agencies have appropriately implement costestimating policies an procedures(four caracteristics of a reliable cost estimation: comprehensive, well-documented, accurate, credible).

In the report: part Apendix II (page 19, 39)

- unplanned change in technical characteristics of the program

- program's cost estimate did not fully reflect the current scope and schedule of the program

In the report page 19, Apendix II

- lack of a clear derivation of the estimation

- not replicable and updatable estimate

- lack of a technical base line description

- program credibility suffers

In the report page 19, Apendix II

- lack of sensitivity analysis

- lack of a risk and uncertanity analysis

- lack of cross-check with a diferent cost estimation method

- uncertanity not adequately assessed

In the report page 26

- weakness in policy

- uncertanity not adequately assessed

The risk cases visible on this page are collected and described by the e-Government Subgroup of the EUROSAI IT Working Group in contact with author Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI). In the same way, analytical assumptions and headings are chosen by the Subgroup. We encourage you to read the original texts by SAIs - to be found in the linked files.