You don't win top honors in the Best of the Web program by playing it safe. Innovation is part of the criteria. So are efficiency, productivity and service delivery. This year, Utah beat out the other 49 states to win the Center for Digital Government's annual Best of the Web award for state government. If risk was a factor, Utah might dominate, given what they are doing with their health and human services eligibility determination system.

When the state decided to overhaul its health and human services eligibility determination system, it opted to rid itself of the traditional silos and build an integrated system that would improve service delivery while helping to hold down costs. Its final choice uses a new template, something called enterprise social management, based on a software engine developed by the fast-growing Irish software company, Curam, and implemented by a large, well known systems integrator.

But like a number of large-scale IT projects, things didn't go quite as Utah hoped.  So the state's IT department decided to do something many would rate as highly risky. They became their own systems integrator, taking over management of the project themselves.

The question CIO Steve Fletcher is asked often these days is why? "We have entire control over the project and it's cheaper this way," he replied. And the state has the expertise when it comes to large-scale human service systems, something the systems integrator did not, according to Fletcher.

When the integrator started missing delivery deadlines last year, Utah and Curam decided to manage the project together, banking on each other's respective areas of expertise to get the job done.

What makes Fletcher think he's going to succeed when one of the world's largest integrators could not? Trust is one component. "We have a great relationship with Curam," he mentioned. "You also have to have a strong, capable project manager, which we have. And you need the involvement of the business managers from the respective agencies from the start."

Fletcher points out that to lead in a project of this scale, you have to contend with three variables: time, scope and money, and you have to build in contingencies to make it work. "I've been on both sides of a project like this -- public and private," he added. 

The enterprise eligibility system will cover Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, food stamps, child care and Medicaid. The project, which started in 2004, will launch a pilot project by August 2008, followed by the rollout of the production system, with March 2009 as the scheduled completion date.