Synopsis :
A project aimed at providing live camera links from police cars and other fixed locations to a central command location fails to achieve the desired results. Equipment failures, poor planning and poor training mean that as a integrated whole the system was worthless.  Staff are unfamiliar with how to use the system, the data collected through the system is of questionable value and failure to understand operating environment in which the system would function resulted in equipment that failed under the extreme temperatures that are not uncommon in the area.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Lack of oversight, faulty equipment, poor training, underestimation of complexity, ineffective procurement practices.

Reference links :

1. Project Shield’ Failures: Report Finds Money-Wasting Problems In Homeland Security Initiative
2. Feds find failures in Cook Co. homeland security project
3. Office of the Inspector General report
4. Video news report (Oct 2009)
5. Video news report (Jan 2012)

Department for Communities and Local Government - UK
Project : FiReControl
Project type : Integration of emergency services dispatch centres
Date : Sep 2011 Cost : £460 GBP

Synopsis :
Efforts to integrate 46 regional emergency response control rooms with 8 integrated centres is abandoned after 6 years of effort and £460 GBP ($727) is spent.  Although construction of the physical buildings is completed the supporting systems to operate the system fail to materialize.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Poor coordination between affected stakeholders.  Failure to build support from key stakeholder.  Lack of due diligence in establishing costs and risks.  Lack of accountability.  Failure of oversight (the project continued moving forward despite clearly apparent problems).

Reference links :

1. Failed fire project wasted £469m says committee of MPs
2. FiReControl - Wikipedia

Synopsis :
Project aimed at implementing a new Law Enforcement Assistance Program to replace an 18 year old system are suspended for 6 months due to technical and cost related issues.  The implementation of a package system from a Canadian company ran into difficulty due to the complexity of integrating it with other existing systems.  Victoria Police IT director Michael Vanderheide issued a statement saying ”A detailed analysis has indicated that, based on the current approach and utilising existing resources, integrating the 20-plus systems that need to be joined with LINK will be a more technically challenging and costly process than was envisioned in the original business case”.  Details of costs are not officially released, but reports indicate costs to be in the order of $100M

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Underestimation of complexity.  Difficulty integrating new system with existing systems.

See also (Failed Justice system project) :

1. Criminal Justice Enhancements Program (CJEP)

Reference links :

1. Crime database scrapped amid $100m blowout and parole blunders
2. Vic Police halts criminal database overhaul

Synopsis :
Australian Defence Minister scraps a $40M project to build 6 new landing craft for use by the Australian Navy.  The boats were to be launched from a larger transport ships (HMAS Manoora and HMAS Kanimbla) which are already in service with the Australian Navy.  Having built the landing craft, the Defence Minister reported that trials of the boats had shown that they were not of operation value.  In particular Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare said ”Most critically, the dimensions and weight of the watercraft meant they were unsuitable to be launched from these ships and are not fit for alternative Australian Defence Force use”.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Requirements management failure.

See also (Failed Australian Navy helicopter project) :

1. Seasprite Helicopters

Reference links :

1. Government pulls plug on $40m landing craft project

Synopsis :
City’s new time recording system for employees goes 10 times over budget and is delivered 6 month late. The 10 year project was originally estimated at $63M but ended up costing in excess of $600m.  Although the system is eventually launched and reaches operational status, investigations reveal suspected fraud.  Several contractors are charged by federal prosecutors.  As a project, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is quoted as having said the project was a “disaster”.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Failure to establish and maintain appropriate financial controls result in suspected fraud.

Reference links :

1. Fraud Charges in New York’s Payroll Overhaul
2. Company in CityTime Payroll Scandal to Pay $500 Million - Added 14 Mar 2012

Synopsis :
The Department of Homeland Security refuses to renew a contract for the construction of a virtual border control system. Aimed at controlling the flow of drugs and weapons, the system was designed to leverage technology to help manage and secure the border. After four years of effort and more than $1B in costs, only 53 miles of the system had been built.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Lack of oversight of the main contractor. Failure to establish appropriate Project Management controls. Shortfalls in the capabilities of the technologies being deployed.

Reference links :

1. DHS Needs to Strengthen Management and Oversight of Its Prime Contractor
2. Virtual border fence a $1 billion failure

Project Management is a field that has experienced rapid growth in recent years.  Although the origins of Project Management lie in the field of construction, the value of Project Management is now being recognized by organizations throughout the economy.

Recent data attained from a major Canada wide job posting website demonstrates that growth and shows how the ability to lead successful projects is becoming the must have skill organizations are now looking for.  The following data was attained on February 17th 2011.  The numbers represent the number of job postings with job titles that include the keywords shown in quote marks…

“Project Manager” + “Project Coordinator” + “Project Leader“+ “Program Manager” – 4807
“Financial” or “Finance” – 4716
“Marketing” – 2918
“Manager” (excluding Project or Program Manager) – 2893
“Accountant” + “Accounting” – 1650
“Engineer” – 1351
“Developer” + “Programmer”  (Java, .net, web, etc) – 1305
“Architect” – 399

Compared with just a few years ago, the number of Project Management related jobs is rapidly rising. As the world economy evolves, businesses are becoming more competitive. The rapid changes businesses are experiencing is leading to more projects being initiated. Combined with the ongoing drive for greater efficiency and speed, organizations are becoming more conscious of the need to deliver high value results in a timely fashion and within constrained budgets. Such changes are drivers behind the increasing level of interest in Project Management practices and Project Leadership type skills.

As the above data illustrates, the rapid changes businesses are experience is now being reflected in the job market. For the first time since I started periodically checking job postings, Project Management and Project Leadership types roles have outpaced finance and marketing jobs. From an individual’s perspective there is an important message to be heard. Where years of experience alone may have been enough to secure work in the past, today a resume rich with achievement is the new currency in the job market place.As a result the ability to lead a project team and deliver successful projects has become a core part of today’s professional toolkit.

Although these figures are from Canada, the fundamental forces driving the shift are being replicated around the world. As a result, individuals, organizations and academic institutions are having to reexamine their thinking and are looking hard at how they can develop the project level leadership skills today’s job market demands.

Synopsis :
Project to replace aging payroll system results in a major failure for Queensland Health authority in Australia.  Following cut-over thousands of staff were left with little or no pay.  Auditor General’s report indicaste a long list of classic mistakes behind the failure.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Lack of planning. Unclear roles and responsibilities.  Failure to engage stakeholders effectively. Tensions between government departments.  Failure to clean up complex business processes prior to implementing new system.  Requirements management and alignment of the project to business needs.  Poorly design team structure (main integrator was 6 layers down the org chart).  Poorly managed cut-over and lack of communications and training.  Go-live decision made despite high defect counts (in fact severity definitions were apparently downgraded part way through the project to allow the project to proceed despite serious problems being present).  Lack of risk management and contingency planning.

See also (other failed payroll projects) :

1. Service personnel and veterans agency UK
2. Los Angeles Unified School District

Reference links :

1. Failure to prepare: Government slammed over health payroll bungle
2. Auditors report - Information systems governance and control, including the Queensland Health Implementation of Continuity Project
3. Queensland health payroll not fully tested

Synopsis :
Efforts to integrate prison and probation systems from different local authorities into one national system fail.  Despite a two year delay and life-cycle costs that have risen from $375M to $1.1B the UK’s National Audit Office reports that although the project will still deliver some benefits, “the key aim of creating a single database of offenders directly accessible by prison, probation and third party intervention providers responsible for offenders from sentencing through to resettlement will not be met”.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Underestimation of complexity.  Green-shifting (failure to report project’s true status to governance levels of the project). Inadequate project oversight.  Poor project management, lack of planning, lack of financial controls and failure to establish appropriate change control processes. Failure to address business process change in parallel with system development. Poor supplier management practices.

Reference links :

1. C-Nomis Prison IT system guilty of ‘basic’ project management failures
2. National Audit Office (NAO) reference page for C-NOMIS

Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and trouble technology projects from around the word.

Synopsis :
ALF (the world’s largest builder of customized fire fighting trucks and equipment) files for chapter-11 bankruptcy following a botched ERP project.  When the new system was switched on reports indicate that production was thrown into chaos resulting in disruption to cash flow and ultimately a liquidity crisis.

Contributing factors as reported in the press :
Few details released, reports indicate serious deficiencies that affected the cut-over resulting in loss of information and severe operational disruption.

Reference links :

1. Firetruck maker files for bankruptcy