Learning from Our IT Failures

One can’t pass a single day without seeing coverage of the failure of the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplace, HIM. It is not surprising the website had problems, but more that people are shocked it did. The current process of managing and acquiring federal IT is largely broken and the HIM example is just another in a long line of high-profile IT failures such as the delayed launch of USAjobs.gov and the Census Bureau’s handheld PC debacle. To address this we must reform federal policy to improve procurement, managements and oversight of government IT.