I was interested to see an article from ZDNet Australia about government IT projects highlighted by ebizq.net. Overall it is a positive story claiming a surprisingly high rate of success but also highlighting some notable failures including an AU$250m(approximately US$180m) customs project that went wrong. Australia is certainly not alone in government IT disasters. From the FBI’s $170m virtual case file project which spectacularly failed in 2005 to the £456m (approx $800m) IT disaster suffered by the UK government’s child support agency, this is a world-wide phenomenon.
However, we should not launch into a tirade about how our tax dollars, pounds and euros are being wasted. It is certainly true that in the past there has been a litany of disastrous projects failures (and quite probably this will continue to a degree into the future) but this is partly because governments world-wide are investing hugely in upgrading IT. In particular, they are spending on integration projects in order to enhance efficiency and provide better services to citizens and better security.
What I have found striking over the last two years or so is the number of government organizations in the US and Europe who have learnt from their mistakes and are now attempting to solve IT problems in an incremental and flexible way and one that is based on SOA and ESBs. There are specific areas that are particularly going in this direction: criminal justice both at a state and national level is investing heavily in SOA and ESBs and in the UK the National Health Service is spending colossal amounts of money on integration and use a leading SOA product from Sun (what was formerly SeeBeyond).
Government and SOA is a much bigger field than can be covered in a blog entry and one which I hope to cover in greater detail as an article. For the moment, let me finish with a quote reflecting the direction that the Australian government wants to take IT:
"It's about ensuring that our organisations can change to be able to deliver change,"
Sounds likes if they aren’t already using SOA, they will be soon
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Interesting post - see my response over on my blog.
http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management/2006/04/new_rules_for_the_government.php
I don't see these systemic problems and tax money wasted in technology terms, but more so in successful management / project management terms...which these government efforts need a lot more of...
Why do you believe that "SOA and ESBs" are indeed solutions? Most assuredly the lack of SOA and ESBs was _not_ the "problem" in previous attempts to develop software so how could SOA and ESBs possibly be a solution?
Indeed this is mere wand-waving and managerial mumbling of "magic words" in the hope that something, _anything_ might prove useful. The problems are not technical problems and they are not prone to technical solutions such as SOA or ESB.