The Globe has an article today looking back on the fiasco that was Ontario’s Integrated Justice Project, a failed large scale IT project intended to “to link Ontario’s correctional system, the courts, the judiciary, the prosecution service and the police into a seamless network through which civil and criminal cases could be filed and tracked”.
Instead, the project collapsed two years ago, six years after its creation, amid accusations of overheated rhetoric, incompetence and deceit.
Soon after the province pulled the plug, EDS Canada Ltd., the lead player in a consortium of private companies that was creating the computer network, commenced legal action to recover money spent on the cancelled project.
Today’s article notes that disputes over the project have now been quietly settled by the Ontario government after it paid out $63M.
Another example of the difficulty of managing complex IT projects.
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I’ve done a lot of work in [mini] mega projects of the $10MM variety so I am responding with that experience in mind.
It never fails to astonish me how willing clients and vendors alike are willing to turn a blind eye to the elephants in the room, thundering about, crying for attention, as they calmly focus on why their project will work.
Instead of calling these elephants out and talking about them, everyone sips their drink and keeps chatting about how great this will all be once its implemented. Take this project or example, didn’t anyone know the state of current technology, or was that a secret? Given the millions of dollars spent, didn’t anyone look at the gotchas?
Why is it so rare, and apparently difficult to be honest with each other? Maybe it’s because this behavior has been labeled as negative or not being on the bus or whatever. I would suggest it’s just the opposite. The one looking for potholes is the one who is planning to steer around them. Anyone who ignores them, doesn’t really plan to make it through, they are just along for the ride.