In recent years, governments around the world have invested heavily in IT modernization initiatives to better serve their constituents with improved services and a higher level of efficiency.
Unfortunately, many of these projects have ground to a halt or crashed and burned entirely thanks to a lack of planning or a botched execution. On the upside, many have picked themselves up, dusted off their clothes, and implemented newer, better systems based on the hard lessons they learned.
Here are three infamous case studies, including what went wrong and how they could have been avoided.
State of Washington’s LAMP Project
The State of Washington’s $40 million LAMP project was met with much fanfare and anticipation when it was first announced. The supposed improvements to the state’s existing antiquated system seemed revolutionary but ultimately proved too ambitious. After years of struggling to keep up with the high cost of implementation and maintenance, the state finally pulled the plug on the project in 2020.
The failure of LAMP rendered a significant setback to Washington’s public sector IT infrastructure, leaving many state agencies unable to run critical operations or provide essential services to the public. The silver lining of this disaster is that it has caused Washington’s government to reevaluate its approach to technology projects and made them realize the importance of creating an effective IT governance structure.
Lessons Learned
Proper preparation is vital to any modernization project, at any organization, in proportion to the size of the project.
When your context is a government entity, an effective IT governance structure will go a long way toward a measured approach to digital transformation initiatives and reduce risk to a minimum. With it, the project will benefit from the fruits of collaboration between departments, stakeholders, and citizens to ensure success.
Add in a dose of data-driven decision-making to understand the needs of your citizens, and the risk of tanking the whole project goes down considerably.
Health Care Authority (HCA) of Washington State MARS Project
The Health Care Authority (HCA) of Washington State ended its MARS project, taking a $110M-$130M charge. The MARS project was an effort to modernize the state’s Medicaid system, but the costs and complexity of the project quickly became unmanageable. As a result, HCA had to abandon the project and start over, acknowledging that better cost estimation and risk assessment measures should have been taken.
Lessons Learned
Undercounting risks puts a project in grave danger as the unexpected risks dish out unexpected costs. The solution: take advantage of the risk assessment phase, and when you’re done, put quality time into extrapolating potential costs. Feasibility studies are a good start, as well as the aforementioned data-driven decision-making.
State of California Court Management System
In 2018, the State of California announced it was abandoning a $2 billion court management system after years of development and implementation.
The system was intended to replace a decades-old system that had become outdated and inefficient in managing the state’s courts. However, the project has been deemed too costly and risky for completion due to numerous technical issues, cost overruns, and delays in both development and deployment. As such, the State of California is now looking for alternatives to ensure its judicial systems are up-to-date with modern technology.
The project, intended to improve court efficiencies by providing judges with access to accurate and timely information, was initially estimated to cost $1 billion. However, the actual cost of the system ballooned to almost twice that amount over the years due to design changes and other technical issues. The main problem was an inability to successfully integrate the new system with existing systems, which resulted in duplication of work and confusion among court personnel. To make matters worse, the system was plagued by software bugs that caused delays in key processes such as case management and scheduling.
Lessons Learned
The failure of the State of California court management system is a reminder that government IT projects can be immense, hard to pin down, and fraught with complications lurking in the shadows, making initial cost estimates inevitably short on reality. In this case, they were halfway there, with reality coming in at $1 billion higher than initial estimates.
The easy solution is easier said than done but necessary: estimate better, ensure the project has a clearly defined timeline and budget, and provide regular updates on progress throughout the project’s life.
It’s also a good idea to ensure that any solutions chosen are scalable and flexible enough to accommodate future technological changes.
What’s the Answer?
Government IT projects can be complex, expensive, and difficult to manage, with a broad array of constituencies to consider. Moreover, they tend to advance at a slower pace than projects in the private sector, making initial plans vulnerable to creeping obsolescence.
So, what is the answer?
All up-to-date best practices should be considered, but the above three case studies in particular point to some essential points:
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- Take care in establishing a governance structure, allowing for due risk and cost assessment.
- Emphasize data-driven analysis. No compromises.
- Go deep into initial analysis to set up realistic timelines and budgets.
- Consider a granular, iterative approach.
- Assume projects will go longer than expected and plan for the advancement of technology when defining milestones.
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With careful planning and consideration for modern technology solutions such as cloud computing or custom development work, governments can ensure their digital transformation initiatives are successful while avoiding any unnecessary financial losses associated with failed legacy systems. With these points in mind, governments should invest in robust strategies to keep up-to-date with current technologies while ensuring they get a solid return on investment from their projects.
Contact CM First today to learn more about how we can help you modernize your legacy applications.
