In this report, the authors present the results of an independent study called for by Section 241 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and identify the challenges associated with the use of software and information technology in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the effects of such challenges on DoD's operations and mission readiness, and potential solutions for addressing identified challenges.

Underperforming Software and Information Technology in the Department of Defense

Bonnie L. Triezenberg, Sarah Zabel, Rachel Steratore, Adrian Salas, Ivan Lepetic, Katie A. Wilson, Natalia Henriquez Sanchez, James Fan, Alexis Levedahl, Sarah W. Denton

ResearchPublished Jan 24, 2025

Responses to a formal survey of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) workforce, findings from other studies, and anecdotal evidence suggest that information technology (IT) infrastructure and software-based systems throughout DoD are plagued by poor performance, which has potential negative impacts on institutional and operational needs. These problems are believed to come from deferred investment in departmentwide hardware and software, excessive complexity in the management of user environments, and poor system design and maintenance. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive effort to measure how significant these problems truly are or how they affect the DoD mission and workforce. The authors of this study provide a first look at the process of quantifying the impacts of underperforming software on department productivity, mission readiness, and morale to help DoD leadership understand the current situation and drive measurable improvement.

The authors' approach focuses on three tasks mandated by the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act: a survey to establish a baseline understanding of the extent of the problem, discussions with the military service chief information officers to identify potential causes and remedies, and development of a framework for measuring future progress against goals.

Key Findings

Service members and civilians experience a variety of technical issues in using their DoD-provided IT and software, some of which significantly affect productivity, mission readiness, and morale

  • A conservative lower-bound estimate of the cost to DoD of lost productivity due to IT and software issues for FY 2023 is $2.5 billion.
  • While the average productivity loss when using a critical software application is two hours per month, one in ten users experiences more than eight hours of productivity loss per month when interacting with a single system critical to their work.
  • After adjusting for self-selection bias, a conservative estimate of 5 percent of the DoD workforce may be strongly motivated to depart from service because of poorly performing IT and software.
  • Conditions throughout the service delivery chain contribute to these issues.

Understanding the full impact of IT and software issues on the DoD mission and workforce is challenging

  • The combination of authorities, resources, and responsibilities involved makes the problems difficult to track and resolve.
  • There are significant discrepancies in the perceived mission impact of user issues between the users themselves and those responsible for providing the capability or service.

Recommendations

  • Improve service and reliability for the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network used outside the continental United States.
  • Regard virtual private networks or follow-on technical solutions as critical infrastructure and ensure appropriate redundancy and resilience.
  • Conduct periodic reviews of standard configurations and create scaled-down configurations that provide better performance to specific user types, including minimized start-up processing for users of shared laptops and minimized background processing and improved reliability for IT used in mission-critical environments.
  • Create a reliable pipeline for timely refresh of end-user devices.
  • Provide mission owners and service/capability providers throughout DoD visibility into the sources, degrees, and impacts of IT issues affecting their workforce.
  • Use automated collection of IT performance data to identify the bottom 10 percent of computing environments.
  • Explore additional ways to identify and resolve IT and software problems as mission or capability issues, working beyond the traditional layered help-desk structure.
  • Strengthen the ability of mission owners and commanders to identify and address technological problems affecting mission accomplishment.

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RAND Style Manual

Triezenberg, Bonnie L., Sarah Zabel, Rachel Steratore, Adrian Salas, Ivan Lepetic, Katie A. Wilson, Natalia Henriquez Sanchez, James Fan, Alexis Levedahl, and Sarah W. Denton, Underperforming Software and Information Technology in the Department of Defense, RAND Corporation, RR-A2927-1, 2025. As of April 8, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2927-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Triezenberg, Bonnie L., Sarah Zabel, Rachel Steratore, Adrian Salas, Ivan Lepetic, Katie A. Wilson, Natalia Henriquez Sanchez, James Fan, Alexis Levedahl, and Sarah W. Denton, Underperforming Software and Information Technology in the Department of Defense. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2927-1.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Chief Information Officer for the U.S. Department of Defense and conducted within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division.

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