Why Large Scale Government IT Projects Fail and What To Do About It

By KEVIN  DE SOUZA and KENDRA SMITH The volume of failed large-scale information technology (IT) projects in the public sector is troubling. These projects are failing at an alarming rate. The long history of public sector IT failures has seen billions of dollars lost, embarrassment, redundancy, waste, and a loss in public trust. In 2004, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) began work on the Expeditionary Combat Support System, a project designed to streamline and automate the USAF’s operations by consolidating over 200 legacy systems. The USAF contracted with Oracle and then Computer Sciences Corporation and by 2012, the project had spent $1.1 billion taxpayer dollars and was ultimately terminated. U.S. Senators Carl Levin and John McCain stated that this project was “one of the most egregious examples of mismanagement in recent memory.” The National Programme for IT in Great Britain has failed miserably after £12.7 billion was spent to create an online portal that would allow citizens access to their personal health information; the project will arrive four years late in 2015. In Victoria, Australia, a smartcard ticketing system for public transportation was started in 2005 and was flawed from conception. Eventually, the project was implemented years late, marred by various missteps, and went $500 million over budget. Even though leaders are familiar with past failures, many in the public sector have failed to learn from these mistakes. Bent Flyvberg and his colleagues dub...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs