How to Go from Risk to Success for California IT Projects (Opinion)

The vendor community’s recommendations for improving California’s IT project implementation.

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California legislators are examining the state’s track record on technology deployments, some of which have been plagued with significant problems, following a state audit report evaluating the California Department of Technology’s (CalTech) oversight role over large IT projects. Hopefully, this will be a springboard for Sacramento to address the challenges on how the state acquires technology.

The pace of technology is getting faster, and as the state’s technology quickly becomes outdated, much of it needs to be replaced or modernized. My testimony on behalf of the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) -- an alliance of leading technology companies -- before a state Senate hearing last week emphasized that the longer policymakers wait to address IT acquisition, the more complex and difficult it will be to modernize the process.

The state can’t get there alone -- there must be a strong partnership between state officials, vendors and the legislature, with a shared goal of ensuring improved outcomes. And to get there, we need to simplify processes at every level.

With that said, we should not overlook the fact that there are many successful IT projects which often get little attention. For example, last July the California Franchise Tax Board announced the recovery of an added $1 billion in state tax revenue resulting from its massive tax system modernization project, the Enterprise Data to Revenue System (EDR). Over the next five and a half years, EDR is projected to raise more than $4.7 billion and an added $1 billion each year thereafter. The state should also be commended for its efforts to improve procurement rules and processes, such as through its State Technology Approval Reform (STAR) project designed to transform the IT project approval process.

These are some of the challenges from the perspective of the vendor community:

  • Workforce. California struggles with having enough experienced and well-trained staff required for complex IT projects.
  • Initial designs of major IT projects often miss the mark. The longstanding approach of writing Feasibility Study Reports (FSRs) needs to be revamped. These FSRs are frequently too optimistic about the amount of money and time they will take to implement.
  • Business and technical requirements often do not meet business needs. Project requirements and key objectives are often diluted, which can cause the project to be destined for trouble before it has even begun.
  • Realistic budget estimates. Budget estimates are made too early – before the requirements are fully understood – and budgets are unrealistic given the complexity of the business and technical requirements.
  • Cost vs. value. The emphasis is often on “low cost” instead of “best value.”
  • Executive-level support. Sustained executive sponsorship is often lacking.
  • Issue resolution. Agencies should be afforded a greater flexibility during contract performance to permit the state and its vendors to work together to resolve issues, rather than “stay the course” simply because that is what is written in the contract.
We believe these recommendations will lead to improvements in California’s IT project implementation:

  1. Ensure that large IT projects proceed only when adequate executive and legislative sponsorship exist.
  2. Embrace a culture of innovation and invest in new technologies.
  3. Build smarter IT procurement.
Adding more bureaucracy will only serve to complicate the current IT acquisition and implementation process. More red tape would add to delays and make driving successful outcomes more costly, risky, and challenging. California’s end goal should be to streamline these processes in order to reduce costs and deliver better results for the services that constituents and government agencies depend upon in the Golden State.

Carol Henton is a state and local government and education policy expert for the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS), a division of ITI, which represents technology companies doing business with state and local agencies. She testified March 26 at a California State Senate subcommitte hearing to examine technology project oversight in the state. She wrote this column for Techwire.net, a sister publication to Government Technology.

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