Project management professionals and pundits long-ago described PHASES of projects as:
1. Wild Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic and Hysteria
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honor for the Nonparticipants
I suspect that the CMS Healthcare.gov project is currently in phase 3, and will move to phase 4 on December 1 when we all discover if the panic & hysteria paid off with a good-enough website and adequately functioning backend subsystems that feed it.
But how could such a high-profile system (POTUS bet his presidency and legacy on it) go so wrong, with so little warning before "DAY 1"?
This blog will focus on the many, many reasons that projects…. particularly Information Technology-based projects fail so often. The Standish Group publishes the CHAOS REPORT each year that provides insight into IT project failures in small, medium and large organizations. The larger the organization, the higher the failure rate. Standish has reported that ~30% of projects get cancelled before completion; ~50% overrun their budgets by ~200%; while only ~16% of projects are realized on time and on budget.
Follow this blog for more exploration of contemporary human - automated system struggles.
This is so true! While working for the Defense Contract Administration Services Division of DoD I experienced the above sequence of events many times. During my tenure as Branch Chief I tried, as best I could, to insulate those people reporting to me from the histrionics flowing down from above (see 3. and 4. above).
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in hearing your thoughts on POTUS's comments about "how we procure things" being one of the root causes for the Healthcare.gov problems. I don't know why every administration seems to want to reinvent acquisition and procurement processes, instead of executing well on what already exists. But you're the professional.
DeleteI'm not sure what POTUS meant by that comment. Unless things have changed since I left federal service, there were perfectly good acquisition and procurement processes in place, with appropriate regulations to insure proper use. It seems, though, that every administration coming into power thinks that they know best; and they don't trust civil servants to do a good job. So, they bypass some very capable people, and go with who they know. (Keep in mind no. 1 above - wild enthusiasm.) Another thing, some of the people working on the project may be voicing some concerns, passing their concerns up the chain of command only to be ignored, or even silenced.
DeleteI couldn't agree more. During one of my recent assignments, we watched the new administration's appointees come in a begin to dismantle the things that we had recently put into place to get more insight into how their BIG programs ($1B or more) were a) fulfilling their mission, b)measuring progress c) reporting accurately d) considering full life-cycle costs and other aspects. There was a certain amount of arrogance and distain for anyone who was already IN the agency… I guess they believed that 'we' were 'obviously part of the problem'. It turns out, of course, that they broke their picks and shovels digging the agency into a deeper hole.
ReplyDelete