‘I Have Yet To Hear What The Real Problem Was’: Kelly Presses Witnesses On Proposed NBIS Program

3 months ago

Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) questioned experts on proposed security legislation durign a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

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00:00is unless we've got somebody responsible for actually chasing this stuff down and everybody's

00:03looking at each other we're not going to get this thing fixed and it seems to me that we owe it to

00:07the intelligence community to the folks that are actually doing the hard work outside of our

00:11boundaries that we're going to follow this thing through and that we have not simply said we know

00:16something happened we don't know what it is and we're not going to do and until it comes to us

00:20we're not going to chase it well we have a hearing i think july 31st on this topic exactly and and

00:25you know again i think we need to get it fully aired out and hopefully by then we'll know who

00:29the folks are that are actually chasing it down and they can share with us what they've gotten done

00:33thank you mr chairman senator kelly

00:37miss harris uh when when was the initial rfp for the program and invest when did we when did we

00:46start so i will refer to dcsa for the specifics on the the contracts but this was this has been

00:55a multi-year process that well when was the contract awarded okay i will defer to david

00:59for the specifics on that the first one with the with peroton and senator's program was begun in

01:062016 as a disa effort so the first rfp would have been issued then you know a typical software

01:12program you come up with a set of requirements you come up with a plan on how you're gonna

01:17you know develop the software how you're going to verify it how you're going to test it

01:21how you're gonna um make sure all the parts work together make sure it's integrated with

01:28other systems pretty early in a program you fix requirements and you say this is it

01:37and contractor you need to build this you know software acquisition often goes

01:44you know one of the ways it can go kind of sideways on you is if you keep changing you

01:48know the requirements i heard i can't remember who said it maybe dr plumb that you now have a

01:54new requirements management process that you're putting into into place so it sounds like the

02:00requirements are still being developed for this system that we started to acquire in 2016

02:10that could be the problem i mean i have yet to hear what the real problem was that caused this to

02:16be delayed from something that started in 2016 that was supposed to be delivered in 2019 and

02:20now we're in 2024 and it sounds like we're still working on requirements um let me let me ask one

02:28question the other possibility or maybe it's a combination of a few things i think somebody

02:34mentioned production challenges and difficulties and requirements was thrown out there is the

02:40contractor you know software is you know it's hard i'd say you know it's different it's different

02:47than manufacturing hardware obviously it presents its own set of challenges so are you having

02:53problems with the contractor being able to write the code and then verify the code and test the

02:59code or is it the thing i started with with which you keep changing the requirements and they can

03:06never catch up so i'll start with the requirements and then i'll defer to david on on the specifics

03:12on the on the engineering i think when when you hear us talk about the requirements process what

03:16we have is for something like this we're getting real-time user feedback the the federal customers

03:22are using it there are things that will be need need to be integrated into future development

03:26cycles right now what we did not have was a rigorous way for us to take those requirements

03:32and kind of look at them against a technical roadmap and understand where they would

03:36where they would affect the development timelines and so that is a place where the undersecretary

03:41of ins's office will be taking an active role to make sure we have a better set of processes

03:46to make sure that as we're getting feedback from users as they're using nbis as the capabilities

03:51roll out and there are requests for new and different things we understand the the effect

03:56they may have on our long-term development timeline was that built into the contract

04:01that that that you were going to continue to feed back new requirements to them as this was

04:08tested and they have they would have to make changes so i think as we are onboarding folks

04:11into this process right there is an expectation that as we are developing under agile methodologies

04:17that we would be getting user feedback and we would be ingesting that into future deliveries

04:22i think what we did not have was a really mature infrastructure to kind of translate

04:26government requirements into technical requirements as dr plumb mentioned and so

04:30that's a key finding from this 90 days is we need to get more rigorous around that the overall

04:36requirement is trusted workforce 2.0 the requirements for what nbis needs to deliver that end-to-end it

04:42system for vetting have been clear from the beginning the enforcement and the kind of

04:48interaction of that with the technical development and the user feedback is where i think the rigor

04:52needs to come in i'll defer to to david for specifics on the on the contractor performance

05:00senator we started with a firmly defined set of requirements we had requirements first from the

05:05secretary of defense in 2016 as the acting undersecretaries laid out about that end-to-end

05:09system those were complemented by further requirements when the administration's agenda

05:15in that time frame 2018 for trusted workforce came together those requirements though are

05:21essentially the same they're just at a higher level when you combine the departmental requirements

05:26and across governmental requirements i'm going to give you a perspective from inside dcsa now

05:31looking at this what i would say is that they were realistic the requirements they were achievable

05:36but my agency did not have a firm understanding of the complexity of the technical features nor how

05:42exactly to approach those and accomplish them now as dr plumb has also said it would seem from our

05:48review from my review now as the director at about 100 days that we did in fact as dr plumb said

05:53focused first on features and a bit less on functional capability delivery and there's a

05:59related point here then about cost about legacy system sun setting because if for example we had

06:06taken an approach to prioritize the sun setting of the legacy systems and especially those that cost

06:10the most first we could have wound up in a different financial picture at this point if not

06:16actually had delivered more capability at an earlier time was the uh it was the contractor

06:23aware of the complexity of the system do you think they were pretty um you know honest with you about

06:30the challenges that they were going to face senator i i think there's a couple things in there i'd say

06:35one is yes i think the contractor has been honest with the government about what they can deliver

06:40and they've done the work as the government specified it but at the same time the government

06:44reserved for itself the role of being the software integrator so in that we asked for

06:49certain things that's senator that's why i'm emphasizing the significance of my agency's

06:52decision making about the requirements did have those individuals within the government that was

06:59going to do the software integration have they done software integration on any programs before

07:05yes sir my new nbis program manager has deep and lengthy experience doing this for the army

07:10for enterprise information systems it's one of the primary reasons why i selected him to be the

07:14program manager and could you give us an example of paraton what else they have built

07:24sir in this case all i could say now is that what i rely on paraton for are these software

07:29services related to nbis and also for a very extensive effort related to field operations

07:34for background investigations themselves

‘I Have Yet To Hear What The Real Problem Was’: Kelly Presses Witnesses On Proposed NBIS Program

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