Report urges Defense to share IT outsourcing lessons

The Defense Department should create an agencywide tool for disseminating best practices information and lessons learned on making an outsourced information technology project successful, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Monday.

"An electronic tool for capturing and disseminating lessons learned would allow the rest of DoD to benefit from the negative consequences and increased risks associated with those practices and projects that the projects did not implement," the GAO concluded in its report prepared for the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support.

The report said Defense's chief information officer concurred with GAO's recommendations and intends to explore a variety of mechanisms that could be used throughout the department.