The complexity of the state’s IT environment was not understood by Northrop Grumman at the time it negotiated the contract. Hundreds of sites and thousands of network assets were left out of an inventory taken in 2005 before the contract was awarded. VITA and Northrop Grumman disagree on whose fault the inadequate due diligence was.

The report found that Northrop Grumman failed to adequately plan for transformation of the network or account for the business continuity of state agencies involved. Northrop Grumman says it was barred from directly contacting agencies and that it could not get an accurate list of sites. VITA says it had appropriate access and should have known all the sites because it was providing service to them.

The transformation schedule didn’t account for making change without disrupting agency business, including failure to post blackout dates on the schedule. The report says that senior Northrop Grumman staff said it was unaware of how complex the IT infrastructure was within agencies.

An HP review of the transformation plan one year into it rated it fair to poor with an almost incomprehensible schedule. It ranked teamwork and communication as poor very and poor, and risk management was rated poor as well.

Four reviews by IT consultancy CACI between 2006 and 2008 found the schedule was driven by deadlines in the contract more than by the scope of the actual work, and that plans lacked detail and were not maturing.