DOD exec offers an off-the-shelf caveat

By Christopher J. Dorobek

Connecting state and local government leaders

| April 12, 1999

Here's how to buy commercial the Frye way DENVERCommercial off-the-shelf products have been portrayed as a silver bullet that can solve many information technology problems, but their use is not a panacea, a Defense Department official said.

Heres
how to buy
commercial the Frye way





	DENVERCommercial off-the-shelf products have been portrayed as a silver bullet that can solve many information technology problems, but their use is not a panacea, a Defense Department official said. The popular notion is that using commercial software can be a quick fix, but the implementation of an off-the-shelf package can require tinkering to meet an agencys needs, said Robert A. Frye, executive director of the Air Force Standard Systems Group at the Gunter Annex of Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. In the end, the changes might reduce the benefits of buying commercial products, he said. Keep costs in perspective, he advised last month at the Government Information Technology Executive Councils Information Processing Interagency Conference. The more an agency requests custom changes, the more a product moves away from its purely commercial version, and the price rises commensurately, Frye said. With all the problems with COTS, its still better than a 100 percent development effort, he said. But government IT shops need to avoid setting unattainable expectations if they want commercial products to fit into their existing systems environments. You better understand what youre getting into, he said. COTS is someone elses legacy system. The push to buy commercial products has been central to the Clinton administrations efforts to improve management of information technology programs. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Franklin D. Raines made the use of commercial products a central part of his Raines Rules, a guide on IT project development. He recommended that agencies simplify work processes to increase the chances of using commercial software. Commercial products do have a significant role in government systems, Frye said. But they can introduce problems with scalability, system integration, maturity, legacy interfaces, and maintenance and support, he said. Most commercial products will not match specific business practices. Therefore, it is necessary to either alter an organizations processes or alter the product, he said. Agencies that use commercial products also give up some control, Frye said. When an agency designs its own system, it controls the updates, improvements and changes to the program. But with a commercial product, even an agency as large as the Defense Department will represent only a small portion of users and will not have the clout to dictate product changes, he said. Frye recommended that agencies looking to implement commercial products set a baseline separating the must-have features of a product from the nice-to-have features. Youre not going to be able to do it all, but you need to get them all down, he said. Another critical step is a gap analysis, what Frye described as comparing the difference between the legacy system and the commercial product. Agencies need to assess whether to add a feature, considering its cost, or whether there is a workaround, he said. Finally, roll out products in phases, Frye said. The big bang wont work.

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Here's how to buy commercial the Frye way DENVER&#151;Commercial off-the-shelf products have been portrayed as a silver bullet that can solve many information technology problems, but their use is not a panacea, a Defense Department official said.

Here's how to buy commercial the Frye way DENVERCommercial off-the-shelf products have been portrayed as a silver bullet that can solve many information technology problems, but their use is not a panacea, a Defense Department official said.