Category: Government projects
June 15th, 2009
Pentagon kills $6.3 billion missile technology project
The Pentagon canceled Northrop Grumman’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor program amid accusations by Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, that the system’s design would not accomplish key military objectives.
It’s not an IT failure, per se, but certainly a great example of poor fit-to-purpose between technology and business requirements, leading to project abandonment and failure. Northrop Grumman had completed approximately $1.2 billion of work at the time of cancellation.
The Pentagon said it terminated the project for the “convenience of the government” and not because of problems with Northrop.
Northrop Grumman describes the system:
KEI is the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) element that is being designed to destroy enemy ballistic missiles during their boost and early midcourse phases of flight. It is also the first ballistic missile defense weapon system to be developed without the constraints of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Reuters said Gates stopped the program because:
June 2nd, 2009
IBM: IT failure and social media disaster
IBM’s recent DB2 fiasco in the Philippines is a textbook case of Devil’s Triangle relationships causing conflict between a technology provider, third-party consultants, and a customer.
Although the situation is interesting, I never expected it to bubble over onto Twitter, demonstrating poor social media practice in addition to vendor/consultant arrogance.
The Twitter connection began when I tweeted a general request seeking an expert to explain technical aspects of DB2. IBM’s customer, a Philippine government agency, raised questions about DB2’s suitability to task, making the technical aspect relevant:
A consultant with DB2 expertise re-tweeted my request. So far, so good:
An IBM DB2 executive responded with the implication my request was somehow wrong, unethical, or not straightforward. Yes, the tactic definitely caught my attention:
May 29th, 2009
IBM's Devil's Triangle: An enterprise software soap opera
IBM faces lawsuits and public embarrassment in the Philippines over a failed government project involving the company’s DB2 database product. The situation offers a textbook example of the Devil’s Triangle, and demonstrates the tensions and conflicts that arise between technology vendors, customers, and system integrators.
Background. The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), a Philippine agency responsible for managing the pensions of government employees, installed DB2 in 2006. By early 2008, the system began showing signs of weakness. Local newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, describes what happened:
[GSIS chief legal counsel Estrella Elamparo] explained that the software started showing problems in early 2008, particularly in handling voluminous chunks of data.
“IBM upgraded its database system purportedly to enable it to handle unlimited volumes of data,” Elamparo said. “However, the reported upgrade only worsened the problem because instead of fixing the problem, the database began mishandling data and prevented the simultaneous use of data.”
The government threatened lawsuits in response, according to the paper:
May 18th, 2009
Gov't IT projects: Billions at risk
New Congressional testimony by the General Accountability Office (GAO) reports that “352 [US federal government] projects totaling about $23.4 billion—were poorly planned.”
The report, which is titled, Information Technology: Management and Oversight of Projects Totaling Billions of Dollars Need Attention, adds:
In our analysis of the high-risk projects in June 2008, we found that of the 472 IT projects that were categorized as high risk, at least 87 had performance shortfalls—collectively totaling about $4.8 billion in funding requested for fiscal year 2009. Agencies reported cost and schedule variances that exceeded 10 percent as the most common shortfall.
These are striking numbers, even for the most jaded of project failure observers.
The testimony recommends that federal agencies take a number of steps to improve oversight on high-risk projects. These steps include:
May 6th, 2009
Research: Gov't lacks oversight on services contracts
Rigorous contract management is a basic and crucial element necessary to successfully oversee procurement and execution of complex projects. However, new research from the UK Public Accounts Committee, a monitoring group within Parliament similar to the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), states the UK government mismanages services contracts on a large scale.
Although based on UK data, the lessons should also be applicable to US government projects. The report, titled Central government’s management of service contracts, offers this summary [edited for length]:
[The] central government makes limited use of financial incentives to encourage suppliers to improve performance. In addition, 38% of contract managers did not always apply financial penalties where suppliers under-performed. The extent to which central government tests the value for money of ongoing services and contract changes is variable. For example, 41% of contract managers had not tested the value for money of new services purchased under an existing contract.
Planning and governance is one of the weaker areas of contract management, although there are examples of good senior level engagement. Less than half the organizations surveyed, however, had an individual with overall responsibility for contract management, and there was no documented plan for managing 28% of contracts. [M]any contracts do not have in place some or all of the elements of good practice risk management; for example, 56% of contracts did not have a contingency plan in case of supplier failure and 30% of contracts where suppliers were dealing with personal or security information did not have a risk register.
May 1st, 2009
Senate introduces important IT watchdog bill
Senator Thomas Carper [D-DE] introduced valuable new legislation designed to increase oversight, transparency, and monitoring of federal government IT projects.
The bill requires agencies to establish public websites showing the status of IT investment projects and mandates creating expert “tiger teams” to help improve troubled projects.
Carper’s introductory statement describes three general goals for this legislation:
- Using a public website to increase transparency around the performance of government IT projects. Carper explicitly calls out VUE-IT, an excellent Office of Management and Budget (OMB) IT status site, as a model.
- Ensuring that agency plans for new IT systems contain a clear business case and provide complete and accurate information before the OMB approves the investments.
- Empowering OMB and agency Chief Information Officers to take action if they realize a project isn’t going as planned, before it spirals out of control including assigning experts to help fix problems.
KEY PROVISIONS
The bill is called S. 920: the Information Technology (IT) Investment Oversight Enhancement and Waste Prevention Act of 2009. It amends section 11317 of title 40, United States Code.
March 14th, 2009
UK prison IT: Massive and 'spectacular' failure
The UK National Offender Management Information System project (called C-NOMIS) failed amid scathing attacks, accusations of mismanagement, and vast budget overruns. The project offers an excellent case study relating failure directly to inadequate governance and oversight.
The project was supposed to create a single database allowing UK prison authorities to track and manage offenders while they are in custody and following their release. After a three-year delay and doubling of costs, authorities abandoned the critical, single database concept.
A National Audit Office (NAO) analysis of this project concludes:
February 25th, 2009
San Diego fires Axon over ERP implementation problems
The city of San Diego, CA terminated its software implementation contract with services provider, Axon, citing “systematically deficient project management practices.” The project is running $11 million (27 percent) over-budget to date, a number which will likely increase.
San Diego’s termination memo highlights key Axon governance and implementation process deficiencies. Tom Fleming, president of San Diego Data Processing Corporation (DPC), a municipal IT contracting agency, wrote the document:
February 19th, 2009
Follow-up: Duration reporting in California's IT strategic plan
After a lengthy conversation with senior representatives of California’s CIO, Teri Takai, I no longer believe Takai deliberately intended to mislead the public over project duration reporting in California’s 2009 IT Strategic Plan.
Takai’s representatives, Adrian Farley, Chief Deputy Director for Policy and Program Management, and Bill Maile, Director of Communications, convincingly explained how the duration reporting discrepancies I identified in a previous blog post arose from “unclear language” and “nomenclature.”
To understand why I needed convincing, read Farley’s comments in the Sacramento Bee, where he responded to my earlier post. His responses are indented:
February 2nd, 2009
Did California's CIO mislead public on IT success?
As part of California’s IT Strategic Plan, state CIO, Teri Takai, compiled a list of completed IT projects to demonstrate the state runs a successful information technology operation. However, closer inspection reveals a series of massive, multi-year IT projects likely to fail.
The CIO’s website introduces the list, called Wins for California’s Information Technology, as follows:
The story of IT in California is one of many successes and a few failures. Between 2003 and 2007, California successfully completed more than 90 projects. These projects, stewarded by a combination of hardworking state employees, involved executives, and a watchful legislature, have provided services to millions of Californians in an efficient and effective manner. The list below exemplifies the breadth and variety of California’s IT successes.
To analyze what’s really going on, I popped the list into a spreadsheet. Despite the wide range in project size and cost, note my calculations on averages and medians: overall, these are short projects, even though several were expensive. Here is the successful project report:
Next, we see the state’s largest active projects:
Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a software and consulting company dedicated to reducing software implementation failures. Click here to discuss this post with him on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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