[IP] Re: Billion-dollar IT failure at Census Bureau

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Steve Peterson [steve@zpfe.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:51 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:     Billion-dollar IT failure at Census Bureau

Dave -- I'm both a software consulting, working in the private sector
overseeing technology projects, and an elected official with
experience overseeing even larger technology projects, so I've gotten
to see many projects succeed and fail.

There's no difference between the public and private sector in regard
to the reasons for technology project failure.  We just don't hear as
much about the ones that occur in the private sector.

Projects in either sector are likely to fail if:

.  they pretend to know all of the requirements up front
.  they pretend to know the complete solution up front
.  they have program management that is not committed to seeing the
project through to completion
.  they have stakeholders/sponsors who aren't sufficiently involved
in supervising the project on a regular basis
.  they don't have go/no-go milestones that force the project to
demonstrate value on a regular basis
.  they don't control their vendors
.  they don't have a functioning project management culture

S


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