California abandons $2 billion court management system by Michael Krigsman.
From the post:
Despite spending $500 million on the California Case Management System (CCMS), court officials terminated the project and allocated $8.6 million to determine whether they can salvage anything. In 2004, planners expected the system to cost $260 million; today, the price tag would be $2 billion if the project runs to completion.
The multi-billion project, started in 2001, was intended to automate California court operations with a common system across the state and replace 70 different legacy systems. Although benefits from the planned system seem clear, court leadership decided it could no longer afford the cost of completing the system, especially during this period of budget cuts, service reductions, and personnel layoffs.
This failure wasn’t entirely due to the diversity of legacy applications. I expect poor project management, local politics and just bad IT advice all played their parts.
But it is an example of how removing local diversity in IT represents a bridge too far.
Diversity in our population is a common thing. (English-only states not withstanding.)
Diversity in IT is common as well.
Diversity in plant and animal populations make them more robust.
Perhaps diversity in IT systems, with engineered interchange, could give us robustness and interoperability.