5 lessons IT leaders can learn from Obamacare rollout mistakes by Teena Hammond.
Teena reports on five lessons to be learned from the HealthCare.gov rollout:
- If you’re going to launch a new website, decide whether to use in-house talent or outsource. If you opt to outsource, hire a good contractor.
- Follow the right steps to hire the best vendor for the project, and properly manage the relationship.
- Have one person in charge of the project with absolute veto power.
- Do not gloss over any problems along the way. Be open and honest about the progress of the project. And test the site.
- Be ready for success or failure. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst and have guidelines to manage any potential failure.
There is a sixth lesson that emerges from Vaughn Bullard, CEO and founder of Build.Automate Inc., who is quoted in part saying:
The contractor telling the government that it was ready despite the obvious major flaws in the system is just baffling to me. If I had an employee that did something similar, I would have terminated their employment. It’s pretty simple.”
What it comes down to in the end, Bullard said, is that, “Quality and integrity count in all things.”
To avoid repeated failures in the future (sixth lesson), terminate those responsible for the current failure.
All contractors and their staffs. Track the staffs in order to avoid the same staff moving to other contractors.
Termination all appointed or hired staff who responsible for the contract and/or management of the project.
Track former staff employment by contractors and refuse contracts wherever they are employed.
You may have noticed that the reported casualty count for the Obamacare failure has been zero.
What incentive exists for the next group of contract/project managers and/or contractors for “quality and integrity?”
That would be the same as the casualty count, zero.
PS: Before you protest the termination and ban of failures as cruel, consider its advantages as a wealth redistribution program.
The government may not get better service but it will provide opportunities for fraud and poor quality work from new participants.
Not to mention there are IT service providers who exhibit quality and integrity. Absent traditional mis-management, the government could happen upon one of those.
The tip for semantic technologies is to under-promise and over-deliver. Always.
[…] I haven’t made any suggestions since the U.S. is home to the virtual case management debacle, the incredible melting NSA data center, not to mention the non-functional health care IT system known as HeathCare.gov. […]
Pingback by The curse of NOARK « Another Word For It — November 26, 2013 @ 10:18 am
[…] That is not contradicted by IT disasters such as HeathCare.gov. […]
Pingback by Redesigned percolator « Another Word For It — November 27, 2013 @ 11:15 am