government projects and project failures

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Wisconsin's Apologist for IT Failure

In recent times, Wisconsin has experienced major IT meltdowns, prompting the State Auditor to release a report recommending various IT reforms. Wisconsin's state legislature also appointed a special task force to review failing IT projects, suggesting the state genuinely takes IT failures seriously. I find these steps to be...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2007-08-01

State of Failure in Wisconsin

Wisconsin seems to be the land of IT project failures. Last April, the state released a report describing broad project failures running through the state government. As a response to so many IT failures, the Wisconsin state legislature formed a special task force to examine the problems. Now, the Wisconsin...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2007-07-22

"Every Problem Imaginable"

Twenty years ago, the Tennessee state government built a 70,000 square-foot data center in a location that now appears to have a few problems. What kind of problems, you ask? Well, heres what Computerworld has to say on the matter:The state located its data center on top of unstable, jiggly...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2007-07-12

Wisconsin Fights Failure

The Wisconsin state legislature has created a special group to study IT project cost overruns, called The Speaker's Task Force on Failed Information Technology Projects. So far, they have scheduled monthly meetings running through August. If these meetings stop in August, then little will be accomplished. On the other...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2007-07-11

Failed Aspirations at Project Aspire

According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Floridas Project Aspire has been stopped in mid-track. From the article:A top Florida official has suspended work on Project Aspire, a proposed financial management system for state government. Alex Sink, the states chief financial officer, said in a release that the project was...

Tags: Project failures, Implementation, Government projects

Blog posts 2007-05-21

Eight Causes of IT Project Failure

Recently, I blogged about an excellent report, released by the UK National Audit Office, on the subject of IT project failures. That report examined 24 IT projects, to draw conclusions about the causes of both project success and failure. While the reports primary focus is on project success factors, it...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-12-07

Government Report: UK IT Projects Still Failing

Back in the 2001 time frame, the Office of Government Commerce National Audit Office in the UK established a program for avoiding large-scale IT failures. The program, called the Gateway Process, established a series of evaluation milestones, or gates, against which a project must be reviewed over its lifecycle. The...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-12-04

Project Ocean Lives!

Back in August, I blogged about Project Ocean, a major implementation meltdown on a City of Philadelphia project. The project was suspended amid allegations of incompetence, politics, and corruption. According to ComputerWorld, the project is now restarting: Philadelphia officials announced [September...

Tags: Project success, Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-10-11

Voting Touchscreens are Evil

Diebold has been in the news lately for producing electronic voting machines that lots of people dont trust. Techdirt points out that one set of issues seems related to the touchscreens themselves. Therefore, Diebold recommends installing a mouse and warns users not to touch the touchscreen. You can guess the...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-10-07

Failure of the State

ComputerWorld reports that Louis Gutierrez, CIO for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has submitted his resignation. From the magazine: In a letter yesterday to his staff, Gutierrez said that when he joined the states Information Technology Division ITD he looked forward to many challenges. But one thing he said he...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-10-04

School Loan Information

Sharon Gaudin reports in InformationWeek on a little problem at the US Department of Education: seems they forgot to test a software upgrade before deploying it on their website. Well, I suppose its no big deal&well, except to the 21,000 people whose personal information was exposed on the web for...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-10-03

"Reckless"

A report by the Work Foundation in the UK is sharply critical of public sector ICT information and communication technology projects, saying that too much recklessness blights government IT projects.The press release includes the following tidbits:Contrary to the stereotype, public sector managers have sometimes been too gung-ho in their attitude...

Tags: Project failures, IT issues, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-09-29

Taxing Problems

The Wall Street Journal reports subscription required that $2-300 million of fraudulent US tax refunds were paid due to an IT project screw-up. From the article:The management efforts of both the IRS and its contractor to improve our automated-refund fraud-detection system were insufficient and are unacceptable, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-08-24

Gasp! Military Cost Over-Runs

Government Computer News reports that cost over-runs on software projects are a problem at the Department of Defense. Anyway, from the article:The problem is huge. In fiscal 2006, the Defense Department will spend as much as $12 billion on reworking software—30 percent of its estimated budget of $40 billion...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-08-24

Free Medicare Money! Oops, not so fast.

Senior Journal reports that the Medicare program erroneously sent out $50 million in drug refunds to seniors, due to an unspecified computer glitch. Unfortunately, the seniors who received over-payments must return the money.A call left by this intrepid blogger seeking more information from the press officer for the Centers for...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-08-24

Australian Cargo

David Jacobsons blog describes a report prepared by Booz Allen Hamilton, analyzing problems in the Australian Integrated Cargo System. The system is intended to track goods coming into Australia by either air or sea. A variety of implementation problems with system resulted in traffic congestion and escalating costs, and the...

Tags: Project management, Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-07-17

Overdue Books

Autumn Grooms reports in the La Crosse Tribune how a 14-year old boy received a $22,840 library fine for a book that was six days overdue. According to Judy Jamesson, secretary to the library director, “During that merger [of two systems], obviously, things happened. I hope people are understanding.” In...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-05-27

Knowing When to Quit

Patricia Keefe has a blog entry in Information Week, where she describes two failed projects: the FBI Virtual Case File and the Mecklenburg County court system, both of which you can read about in this blog.Patricia raises the question of deciding when its time to kill a project. From her...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects, CIO issues

Blog posts 2006-05-21

Throwing Good Money After Bad?

The Charlotte Observers Carrie Levine describes an ugly IT situation faced by Mecklenburg County, NC. Heres what happened. In 2001, Mecklenburg County signed a contract with a company called PEC Solutions subsequently bought by Nortel Government Systems to build a criminal justice information system. The original budget isnt stated in...

Tags: Vendor relationships, Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-05-20

Failing Grades

Sam Dillon reports in the New York Times on states expensive efforts to implement new computerized record systems for tracking student grades, performance, attendance, and other data. These are complex and expensive systems, and many state education departments are seeing poor management result in many millions of dollars of...

Tags: Project failures, Government projects

Blog posts 2006-05-17