Summary: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) routinely acquires new information systems and enhancements to manage and support its various programs and operations. GAO has designated HUD's major program areas as high risk, in part because the department's information and financial management systems are poorly integrated, ineffective, and generally unreliable. HUD has been trying to improve its systems to better support its missions and management reforms. HUD did not fully satisfy the requirements for any of the "repeatable" key process areas GAO reviewed. Although HUD's software acquisition process has several strengths, GAO found weaknesses in all key software process areas evaluated: requirements development and management, project management, contract tracking and oversight, and software evaluation. As a result, HUD's processes for acquiring software are immature and ad hoc, sometimes chaotic, and not repeatable across projects. HUD acknowledges these weaknesses, is committed to improving its software and system acquisition processes, and will soon begin a process improvement effort.
