$8 billions later..

http://www.cio.com/archive/040104/irs.html

Apr. 1, 2004 Issue of CIO Magazine
Project Management
For the IRS There's No EZ Fix

By assembling a star-studded team of vendors, the IRS thought its $8
billion modernization project would manage itself. The IRS thought wrong.
Now the agency's ability to collect revenue, conduct audits and go after
tax evaders has been severely compromised.
BY ELANA VARON


The IRS's $8 billion modernization program, launched in 1999 to upgrade
the agency's IT infrastructure and more than 100 business applications,
has stumbled badly. The first of multiple software releases planned for a
new taxpayer database is nearly three years late and $36.8 million over
budget. Eight other major projects have missed deployment deadlines, and
costs have ballooned by $200 million. This case study illustrates what can
go wrong when a complex project overwhelms management capabilities of both
vendor and client. The IRS did not follow its own procedures for
developing the new systems and failed to give consistent direction and
oversight to prime contractor CSC. Longtime managers resistant to change
undercut the vendor as well as the private-sector IT executives hired to
oversee the program. IRS execs and its oversight board say CSC failed to
grasp the complexity of the assignment. To turn things around, the IRS has
barred CSC from starting new projects and changed the terms of its
agreement with CSC so that most of the work on modernization will be done
at a fixed price. The agency has scaled back its project portfolio, and
CSC has brought in more people at both management and staff levels who
understand the tax business.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------

Why! Should have hired DD.

Teach 'em,

Bev Early


Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/