These kinds of IT disasters are often the result of IT-illiterate politicians changing requirements, which leads to project creep and then project failure and overspend  (Why the Big Apple's IT is rotten to the core). It’s not rocket science but history continues to repeat itself.

Will

The shared services projects that the NAO is tracking sound like the usual expensive mix of systems integrator, software vendor, and management consultants (National Audit Office criticises shared services arrangements). They all make sure there’s just enough failure and expense to justify canning the programme and starting again, making the same mistakes!

For true collaboration to work, you need simplified systems that support the people, and how they want to work. Don’t force them all to use the same screens, which don’t fit real-world processes, and which then cause spreadsheets to proliferate.

Technology should be a simple enabler. ERP? BPM? SCM? CRM? Since when has an acronym enabled anything?

Darren Woods

Mmmm. Alleged £31bn waste. Alleged £3.75bn savings. Francis Maude would be in line for a big fat bonus if he worked in the City (Maude cites ICT record as he refutes Whitehall waste allegations)  

What about the small things, like putting Microsoft and Oracle back in their boxes? How about refusing to pay more than 12 per cent per annum on “maintenance” for any government purchase of an off-the-shelf package rather than the current 20 per cent?

Should procurement and project/programme management be part of a new Michael Gove-inspired IT curriculum in schools?

Jaw Dropped

It is time that the cost of all government IT failures is totted up and those responsible for the dreadful waste severely censured (FiReControl slammed as one of the biggest IT failures in years).

The FiReControl fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg: dare one mention police radio, ambulance control, NPfIT? And not once, as far as I know, has the government ever got a penny back from the suppliers and consultancies that failed to deliver these solutions.

There are, of course, other guilty parties: the incompetent Whitehall project managers. These people should be dismissed without golden handshakes and certainly not redeployed to other government posts.

Robin

It comes as no real surprise that MPs have heavily criticised the Department of Health (DoH) for the failings of the NHS IT programme (Parliament slams DoH’s handling of NPfIT). Indeed, there have been three fundamental issues from the outset that have contributed to its flaws.

First, there was next to no engagement with the stakeholders or potential end-users as to what goals the DoH was aiming to achieve from the project. Secondly, as a consequence of this, the suppliers had insufficient direction as to precisely what end goal was required and being aimed for. Finally, the project has expanded so much that it has become unmanageable.

The three faults of the NHS programme could have been readily countered were an agile development methodology applied from the start.

Agile intrinsically requires a regular detailed engagement with the end-users, such that progress can be constantly assessed according to the specific need. Because of this process of ongoing assessment and revision, projects where requirements are unclear stand a greater chance of success as the accuracy of the end goal is constantly examined and even changed if deemed appropriate. Provided the end result delivers real business value, it will be rightly deemed a success, even though it may not match the originally intended goal. Sometimes a project may take a little longer to complete, but that is much better than a total and costly failure.

Andrew Wilcox, IPL