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.
