Government inflexibility leads to IT nightmares

The Nov. 6 article about the state tax collection system’s problems was on point in what it revealed about large information technology companies that are awarded these contracts ("Persistent problems plague tax collection system," Star-Advertiser) — but more important, the quagmire that is inherent in state and federal governments’ IT contract award processes.

One has only to review the last decade of government IT awards — and specifically, failures of the Department of Defense IT health care systems — to understand why it’s not surprising that companies like CGI and CGI-Federal are having delivery problems with Hawaii’s tax system, the Obamacare website and the Hawaii Health Connector.

Several key areas need immediate remediation:

» The morass of guidelines for evaluation and procurement in the competitive IT award process are perfect for large corporations that have the luxury of large staffs to compile the swamp of requirements required for bid submission and award-winning.

More problematic is that these guidelines have traditionally forced the use of archaic "waterfall" design/development methodology requiring that extensive upfront design specifications be put forth in answering the solicitation, which are often far from comprehensive or realistic. Therein lies the problem.

This design methodology is linear: flowing sequentially from start to end point and is rigid so as to allow compliance with unrealistic delivery schedules. Sadly, work then progresses on incorrect, inflexible government specifications that are front-loaded into the statement of requirements and work.

So it’s not surprising to hear CGI spokesman Linda Odorisio say about the Connector: "The system is working as planned." This mirrors recent comments about the Obamacare website made in Washington by CGI-Federal executive Cheryl Campbell that it is "working as designed."

These are the same comments made for decades by "Beltway Bandits" who seemed more interested in building staffs that win contracts than in delivering results. These corporate boilerplate statements have been made in defense and in litigation from those who deliver billion-dollar government systems that users find, at best, impossible to navigate, or at worst, do not work for us at all.

» Government requirements must mandate greater use of more progressive "agile" design/development methods that allow for iterative user involvement, where customer feedback occurs simultaneously with development, as does testing.

Such methodology results in software that actually works not as "designed" but as the customer and user "intended." It would silence the absurd argument put forth in the Obamacare hearings by CGI that the government was responsible for system testing, not the contractor.

To see that "agile" methodology really works, look closely at Google, Facebook, Twitter. In fact, look at the Honolulu-based IT company and its team that designed and implemented a nationally deployed DoD/Veterans Affairs electronic medical record user interface, commonly known here as JANUS. Both VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in their wisdom mandated that JANUS be used in joint DoD/VA medical facilities, moving millions of taxpayer dollars away from screaming Beltway Bandits.

» Governments are obligated to the public to employ skilled IT architects and designers at key levels in-house, to put forth sound contract specifications but also to monitor and audit contract compliance during design, coding, testing and implementation. But what has transpired over time are government contract acquisition experts now proclaiming to be IT architects capable of producing large solicitations. These "experts" lack the technical depth and expertise to adequately monitor contract compliance by vendors unless they hire yet another contractor to accomplish that. The lack of IT skills at high levels in government is now pervasive — and without remedial action, government will continue to sell its IT soul to companies like CGI and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. And we will see more dysfunctional billion-dollar enterprise applications and websites, and, tragically, more IT security transgressors in the image of Edward Snowden.