All –
My name is Ed Lyons. I am a software executive who has written an extensive new, non-partisan report on problems with the health connector. (Link here: http://bit.ly/1wwmHyp There is a brief summary here: http://bit.ly/1pyVwOL ) I live in Brighton, and after the exchange crashed, I met with Senator Brownsberger about some potential reforms in how IT projects are managed.
I don’t want to discuss the accountability angle here. I do think it’s a good occasion to discuss what could be done in the areas of transparency, procurement reform, and public-private partnerships to make government better at these large, critical projects, especially as we have seen other large failures, such as for the Departments of Revenue and Labor.
Any ideas?
My gut feeling about this issue is that we need better, tougher, more realistic management in information technology. Ultimately that depends on people in the administrative units taking full responsibility for the success of the projects. I believe that project failures happen when non-technical managers take a hands off approach to technical development. Usually, technical failures are not really technical failures but failures to understand business processes adequately. We need hands on leadership from the governor.
Ed, that was a terrific report you compiled. Pretty stunning to read to what level this project was mismanagement by incompetent political appointees.
When the site was about to go online, and the principals at the Health Connector knew the site was not working, they pretty much started a public disinformation campaign through the newspapers and the radio claiming the web site was working great.
Unbelievable. This lying to the public is an indictable offense.