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296 pages
You would think that a system this slow, this careful, would produce very few failures. Not so. If anything, it’s just the opposite. The history of federal IT is filled with horror stories of long delays, billion-dollar cost overruns, and software that just plain old didn’t work.
The marquis example, of course, is HealthCare.gov. On launch day, the website received 4.7 million visitors, yet only six people were able to enroll. One month later, roughly 25,000 made it through. All for the price of $800 million. The New York Times summed it up brilliantly: “For the first time in history, a president has had to stand in the Rose Garden to apologize for a broken Web site.”
Nearly every American took note of the administration’s flop on HealthCare.gov. After all, we were promised a system that would touch and improve an intensely personal part of our lives. But there are countless other failures, of similar scale, that have gone relatively unnoticed by most of the electorate. If anything, it’s surprising a Rose Garden apology has taken this long.
The Census Bureau’s attempt to go digital for the 2010 census is a good example. The agency hired Harris Corp to help replace its paper-based collection methods with specialized devices, awarding them a $600 million contract to develop the handhelds and software. The project unfolded predictably: cost overruns totaled in the billions, and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez was hauled before congress to explain what went wrong. “There is no question that both the Census Bureau and Harris could have done things differently or better over the past couple years,” he says.
The list goes on and on. We could write a whole book on the history of failed federal IT projects. Instead, let’s sum it up like this: the Standish Group, a consultancy that studies federal procurement, found that of all IT projects in excess of $10 million, 52% were challenged, and 38% failed. Only 10% of large-scale projects succeeded, according to their findings. Not exactly the numbers you’re hoping for when most Americans can buy their groceries on a smartphone.
So what’s going wrong? Why is the system so broken? There’s no one answer, but it’s increasingly obvious that the waterfall method traditionally used for procurement and development – which is essentially a very expensive blind wedding – plays a big role. Winners are chosen not necessarily because they will do the best job, or even a good job, but because they are they cheapest, and because they know how to navigate byzantine requirements like MD 102. “It’s basically, ‘Congratulations, you won the award,’ then they drop the mic and walk out of the room. And in six months you get something and realize it’s not what you wanted, not what you needed.” That was Mark Naggar, who manages HHS’ innovative new Buyers Club – we’ll talk more about him later. But now, he sums up the problem perfectly: “So often we're focused on getting something awarded and there's not enough attention focused on implementation.” It should come as no surprise then, that implementation is where most projects break down.
If you’re in government, it’s easy to feel trapped by this system – like it was designed to make your life miserable and keep you from getting anything done. That’s how Mark Schwartz felt when he first got to USCIS. But in reality, there’s no “Dr. Evil”, laughing as he thinks up new ways to make you pull out your hair (if you still have any). “The people who put together MD 102 wanted to do the right thing, and were not a faceless bureaucracy,” says Schwartz. But in their attempt to minimize risk, and to make sure that government delivers on its legal and policy needs, they created a process that all but guarantees the opposite. They practically ensured that government would get old technology, implemented poorly, for ten times the price.
That’s not to say these boxes don’t need to be checked. Government has always had unique requirements, and it’s not like the Internet magically made them disappear. But for the promise of digital transformation to be realized, these needs must be met in a smarter, faster, and cheaper way.
William D. Eggers
RosettaBooks
2016