October 31st, 2008

Prime Minister 'doesn't recognize' IT failures

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 6:33 am

Categories: Government projects, IT issues, Politics

Tags: Prime Minister, Information Technology, Strategy, Management, Michael Krigsman, IT Failure

In a comment that was rather bizarre and extraordinary, even for a politician, UK Prime Minister, Gordon Browne, dismissed the importance of multi-billion pound IT failures.

In the House of Commons transcript, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, raised IT failures with the Prime Minister:

[T]he Prime Minister does not seem to distinguish between good public spending and bad public spending. At a time when every penny of public money needs to be spent wisely, he wants to waste £13 billion on an NHS computer system that does not work, £12 billion on a surveillance database, which will spy on everybody in the country, and billions more on ID cards.

The Prime Minister responds:

Read the rest of this entry »

December 29th, 2007

Data breaches: 2007 IT failure superstar

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 6:13 pm

Categories: Availability and reliability, CIO issues, End-user impact, Enterprise 2.0, IT issues, Project failures, Research and statistics, Risk, Security and privacy

Tags: Breach, Information Technology, Data Breach, Disaster Recovery, Strategy, Data Management, Management, Michael Krigsman

Data breaches represented the most important category of IT failure during 2007.

The year 2007 saw spectacular failures, ranging from improperly-paid teachers at Arizona State University (ASU) and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), to a massive implementation problem at the UK National Health Service (NHS), which one observer called the “greatest IT disaster in history.” Despite the impact of these high-profile failures on victims, the number of people affected is minuscule compared to the cumulative effect of data breaches.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse conservatively estimates over 216 million privacy records were breached in the period 2005-2007, in the United States alone. According to attrition.org, which maintains a database that researchers can download to conduct their own analysis, approximately 165 million records were compromised during 2007. While most breaches occurred in the US, incidents were also reported in Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

The downloadable attrition.org database lists the following causes for data breaches during 2007:

• Improper document disposal
• Fraud
• Hacking
• Lost computers and disk drives
• Lost and stolen media and tapes
• Lost postal mail
• Web breaches

Unlike ordinary IT failures, which generally affect a relatively bounded group, such as employees of a particular company, even a single breach can put millions of people at risk and cut across every segment of society.

The recent loss of two data discs belonging to UK Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is a case in point. The loss of these discs, which contained personal information belonging to 25 million people, affected every family in the UK with a child under the age of 16. The scope of this breach was such that the British prime minister was forced to apologize.

Stopping data breaches will likely be far more difficult than preventing IT failures, which can be controlled by applying improved implementation methodologies and processes. Many breaches, such as the HMRC case, ultimately arise because organizations do not recognize the true value of the data under their protection. As we all know, changing such deeply held attitudes in any organization is usually a long-term project.

Given these attitudes, improving the worldwide data breach situation will require a combination of top down change and government regulation:

• Senior leaders from both private companies and government agencies must treat data protection policies as strategic and devote resources at a level commensurate with this status. Bringing forth such a cultural change in attitudes toward custodial data will take years.
• Governments should demand stiff penalties from organizations that lose personal data, regardless of how that data is lost. In addition, regulators should enforce more timely public disclosure, and increased transparency, whenever breaches occur.

Although these steps will reduce the prevalence of data breaches, we are likely to see many more in 2008.

August 23rd, 2007

Boeing virtual fence: $30 billion failure

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 4:58 pm

Categories: Government projects, Project failures

Tags: Boeing Co., U.S. Department Of Homeland Security, Fence, Michael Krigsman

The Department of Homeland Security “virtual fence” project, being built by Boeing, is in big, big trouble. The virtual fence is a high-tech network of cameras, lighting, sensors, and technology designed to intercept illegal border crossings. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Boeing Co. has changed the management of an electronic-surveillance project along the U.S.-Mexican border after falling more than two months behind schedule, marking the complications involved in setting up a new generation of border security.

The project, part of a larger Department of Homeland Security program called SBInet, is a critical link in the plan to use technology to monitor the borders for illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and possible terrorists. Towers set up along a stretch of the border near Nogales, Ariz., are supposed to use motion sensors, cameras and radar to keep track of wide areas. According to the government, Boeing has had trouble getting the different components to work together without glitches.

The government’s plans for monitoring as much as 6,000 miles of the Canadian and Mexican borders hinge on towers such as these working properly. If they prove ineffective, officials could be forced to spend billions of dollars for more traditional security measures, such as fences and more officers. The Homeland Security Department currently estimates that the virtual fence will cost about $8 billion through 2013, although the agency’s inspector general wrote last November that the cost could balloon to $30 billion.

Additional information can be found in a superb article by Joseph Richey, of the Nation Institute, which funds investigative journalism:

In Washington, U.S. Congressional representatives are already bristling at the skyrocketing costs of SBInet. Since Boeing won the contract last year, the estimated cost of securing the southwest border has gone from $2.5 billion to an estimated $8 billion just a few months later. When Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter asked SBInet Director Giddens for the real costs at a February 2007 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, Giddens replied: “I wish I could answer that with greater clarity.”

At the same Congressional hearings, Boeing vice president and SBInet program manager, Jerry McElwee, took heat from Congressman William Lacy Clay who demanded information about the ballooning costs and the extension of the contract period. “You bid on these contracts and then you come back and say, ‘Oh we need more time. It costs more than twice as much.’ Are you gaming the taxpayers here? Or gaming DHS?” the Missouri Democrat asked.

DHS’s own inspector general, Richard Skinner, says that the Boeing contract is in the “high-risk” category for waste and abuse because of its scope, its dollar value, and “the vulnerabilities stemming from the lack of acquisition management capacity.”

A major concern is the pyramid-like management structure that critics say have led to cost overruns and poor quality in other major projects. They note that the multiple subcontracting tiers allow Boeing to exact a cut at every turn, and create a conflict of interest because the company is also in charge of oversight.

This failure has the potential to eventually rival the UK National Health Service disaster, known affectionately as the “greatest IT disaster in history.” It also brings back memories of the Airbus failure, in which multiple project segments failed to work when brought together as a finished unit.

The level of planning and coordination required to complete a project like this on time and budget almost defies human capability. Why don’t they break it down into smaller, simpler components, increasing the likelihood the thing can actually be built?

Update 9/10/07: DHS has another failure on its hands. Read about it here.

August 10th, 2007

"IT bungles: appalling and unacceptable"

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 3:50 pm

Categories: Government projects, Project failures

Tags: Information Technology, Michael Krigsman

The UK’s Child Support Agency (CSA) has had a long history of major IT and management problems, as described in Computer Weekly.

Now, politician Danny Alexander has jumped into the fray with a few choice words describing the CSA:

The massive IT failures that have dogged the CSA are appalling and unacceptable. With so many glitches it is easy to see why thousands of families have been failed by this agency.

The CSA is riddled with incompetence and long ago lost public confidence. If we are to ever solve the issue of child support we need radical reform, not a simple re-badging of this failing agency.

Today we have also heard that the CSA’s annual report has been delayed until October. After these latest revelations about IT bungles, it seems inevitable that we can expect more mistakes to be revealed after the summer.

Aside from the chest-thumping, political grandstanding tone of his comments, Danny makes some good points.

The UK has had more than its share of serious, high-profile government project failures, such as the enormous NHS meltdown, which has been called the greatest IT disaster in history.

Stay tuned, as more on this is certain to come.

July 26th, 2007

Another UK Health Project Dies

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 4:11 pm

Categories: Project failures

Tags: Information Technology, Atos, Health Care, UK National Health Service, Michael Krigsman

The UK National Health Service is cancelling an IT-related contract due to problems with the vendor. From an article on silicon.com:

The move was taken when it became clear that Atos Healthcare - part of IT services company Atos Origin - was not in a position to provide the services to the timescale agreed in the contract, the Department of Health said.

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Atos Healthcare said in a statement: “The Department of Health yesterday advised Atos Healthcare that it did not intend to proceed with its centrally procured Diagnostic Services contracts for the North West and South West regions. We are in the process of engaging in discussions with the Department of Health to agree the final termination details of the contract.”

The NHS has an absolutely terrible record of IT-related project failures. How did they select a vendor that is incapable of completing the work? One can only guess.

September 29th, 2006

Don't Be Mad, Just Leave

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 5:05 pm

Categories: Government projects, Project failures

Tags: Michael Krigsman

The UK National Health Service (NHS) is in the midst of a £12.4 billion IT project meltdown, which has been called the “greatest IT disaster in history”.

According to Silicon.com, Accenture has now left the project, turning over its remaining work to CSC. From the article:

As part of the agreement Accenture will get to keep £110m of the £173m it has been paid by the NHS to date…

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Accenture warned in its financial results earlier this year it expected to take a $450m hit on its NHS IT contracts over the next three to four years because of delays that led it to miss the deadlines for delivering working systems.

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One NHS IT director in the North East region, who did not wish to be named, told silicon.com there is a mood of “anger” within the NHS at the lack of progress.

The IT director said: “Accenture have done absolutely nothing in the North East and for the past nine to 12 months they have been invisible. They have been here for nearly three years and they have done nothing, yet it has put planning blight on any progress that was being made before.

“All the money that has been spent could have been making a difference to patients now. We’ve wasted years of potential development and improvement.”

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August 30th, 2006

UK Health Program: a Very Sick Patient

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 9:04 pm

Categories: Government projects, Project failures, Vendor relationships

Tags: Michael Krigsman

The National Health Service is in the middle of a massive ”£12bn IT programme designed to keep electronic records of 30 million NHS patients throughout the UK.” This program has been ongoing since 2002 and has been called the greatest IT disaster in history.

Here are the latest developments:

• iSoft, a key software contributor, has been cited for”apparent irregularities in its accounts.”
• iSoft has also been cited in a review because the“issue of clinical safety under the current Isoft system as a ‘red’ problem. [The review] notes the firm has appointed a director of clinical safety in response to the concerns, but that he could not ‘articulate the time frames for establishing a clinical safety team given the current financial climate within Isoft’ - a reference to the company’s financial problems which have caused its share price to collapse.”
• Accenture, a key contractor on the project, is prepared to resign. According to one analyst: ‘In essence, what Accenture is saying is “we want compensation because this thing isn’t going to plan, and it’s costing us a bomb.”
• Apparently, the National Audit Office covered-up problems to make the program appear less disastrous.

It’s interesting to note that the inspiration for this program arose in 2001, after Bill Gates met Tony Blair: “Mr Gates, the billionaire software pioneer, had just written a book about how IT could transform economies. The prime minister, determined to reform Britain’s public services, was hooked.”

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June 9th, 2006

"Greatest IT Disaster in History"

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 11:59 am

Categories: Government projects, Project failures

Tags: Michael Krigsman

Leo McKinstry (Daily Mail) writes about a project in the UK that is being deployed for the National Health Service (NHS). From the article:

The Government warned that its flagship computer network for the NHS, which was meant to go on-line at the end of last year, is still hopelessly behind schedule and could end up costing over £20billion, more than £14 billion above its original estimate.

Indeed, experts have warned that the project could actually cost more than £30 billion, making it the greatest IT disaster in history.

Paul McDougall writes in InformationWeek, “The project, run by Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., Fujitsu, and others, has been plagued by software problems and resistance from physicians.”

Well, I guess it seems that the US government doesn’t have a monopoly on screwed-up IT projects.

UPDATE 8/30/06: See this link for the latest news on this never-ending saga.

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