What it boils down to for me is that the best contractor in the world can't make up for the worst government decision makers. After a project goes down in flames the contractor can point to specific failings at the government level, but at that point it's too late, you've already wasted a lot of money and you don't have a working system.
In my opinion, multiple facets of government IT have to be fixed:
A. Government leads need training on how to successfully manage IT projects.
In practice this is a huge undertaking because there are a lot of organizational challenges that have to be tackled before a lot of IT projects have a chance of success. Good managers in government will also have to tackle dysfunctional bureaucracy in order to be successful
B. Government employees need to be held accountable for their failures.
C. There needs to be more full time IT professionals in government in positions of leadership
D. Hard deadlines should not be determined politically before it has even been determined if that the deadlines is achievable
E. The contract award process needs to be reformed.
In my opinion, multiple facets of government IT have to be fixed:
A. Government leads need training on how to successfully manage IT projects.
In practice this is a huge undertaking because there are a lot of organizational challenges that have to be tackled before a lot of IT projects have a chance of success. Good managers in government will also have to tackle dysfunctional bureaucracy in order to be successful
B. Government employees need to be held accountable for their failures.
C. There needs to be more full time IT professionals in government in positions of leadership
D. Hard deadlines should not be determined politically before it has even been determined if that the deadlines is achievable
E. The contract award process needs to be reformed.