Just before the 2010 census, the U.S. Commerce Department canceled a plan to acquire 500,000 handheld computers they had ordered to tabulate data. According to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, costs had skyrocketed. He blamed the problem on “a lack of effective communications with one of our major suppliers.” Apparently, there was plenty of blame to go around. Secretary Gutierrez noted that the Census Bureau had submitted numerous technical changes to the vendor, Harris Corporation. This greatly increased the cost and the complexity of the devices. Gutierrez stated, “The Census Bureau was unaccustomed to working with an outside vendor on such a large contract.” He also pointed out that the vendor had submitted an initial estimate of $36 million to operate a help desk to assist census-takers, but that figure had jumped to $217 million. “It was a bad estimate. I can’t think of a better way to say it. Harris gave us the number. We accepted it. It was totally underestimated.” What can be learned from the failure of this project, and could it have been prevented? Suppose you were asked to head up a similar project. What would you do to prevent a similar outcome?
Just before the 2010 census, the U.S. Commerce Department canceled a plan to acquire
500,000 handheld computers they had ordered to tabulate data. According to Commerce
Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, costs had skyrocketed. He blamed the problem on “a lack of
effective communications with one of our major suppliers.”
Apparently, there was plenty of blame to go around. Secretary Gutierrez noted that the
Census Bureau had submitted numerous technical changes to the vendor, Harris
Corporation. This greatly increased the cost and the complexity of the devices. Gutierrez
stated, “The Census Bureau was unaccustomed to working with an outside vendor on such
a large contract.” He also pointed out that the vendor had submitted an initial estimate of
$36 million to operate a help desk to assist census-takers, but that figure had jumped to
$217 million. “It was a bad estimate. I can’t think of a better way to say it. Harris gave us the
number. We accepted it. It was totally underestimated.”
What can be learned from the failure of this project, and could it have been prevented?
Suppose you were asked to head up a similar project. What would you do to prevent a similar
outcome?
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