Lessons Learned for Improving the Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System’s Acquisition Module Deployment

VA has one of the largest acquisition functions in the federal government. In fiscal year 2023, VA obligated over $60.8 billion to provide health care and other benefits to veterans. To modernize its financial and acquisition processes, VA is implementing the Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System (iFAMS), replacing legacy systems with a single financial and acquisition management system of record. Since iFAMS implementation began in 2020, the VA OIG has repeatedly reported on the system’s increased risks of fraud, waste, and disruptions to operations, as well as deficiencies in its developmental and planning stages. This review focuses on the acquisition module of iFAMS, determining whether it was sufficiently planned and tested to fully meet the acquisition workforce’s requirements. The team’s findings and recommendations are meant to inform future iFAMS deployments. The review team acknowledged the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction (OALC) and the Financial Management Business Transformation Service (FMBTS) identified system requirements, understood the necessary functionality of iFAMS, and tested the system with stakeholders. However, they did not adequately include acquisition stakeholders in decision-making roles. Further, because OALC and FMBTS did not effectively address the acquisition workforce’s feedback, administration staff have expressed resistance based on concerns that the iFAMS acquisition module may not meet their needs. While the team also recognized VA has taken steps to improve its change management, the OIG made four recommendations. These recommendations include ensuring all VA administrations and staff offices are represented in key decision roles when future acquisitions involve multiple offices. VA should also promote stakeholders’ understanding of system capabilities and complete hiring actions needed to staff the project management office. The final recommendation is to resolve iFAMS challenges and concerns before future deployments. VA concurred with all recommendations.