My post yesterday about the United States federal computing mess caught the attention of Ed Yourdon on Twitter (yes — THAT Ed Yourdon). He sent it on to Paul Strassman, who put a link to one of his own articles into the comment thread for another post in the series. Paul’s article (that link goes up and down a bit) contains such damning observations as (emphasis mine):
Communication projects continue as independent engagements. The total infrastructure consists of 578 diverse applications costing $14.94 billion. Most of these applications do not share a common data dictionary and therefore are not interoperable. This diversity is the consequence of networks that are contractor defined and not integrated …
To better understand future directions, the term “shared infrastructure” requires an explanation. The fiscal year 2009 Defense Department budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget identified 2,193 information technology projects (Air Force, 466; Army, 216; Navy, 973; agencies, 538). Of the total of $33 billion, $11.9 billion is for development and $21 billion is for operations and maintenance. An estimated seven-year lifespan for Defense Department software reveals the software’s cumulative value to be near $70 billion, which keeps consuming double that amount in maintenance. …
Proliferation of Defense Department infrastructure investments persists as a legacy of Cold War project acquisition practices that favored isolated and completely self-sufficient investments. The fiscal year 2009 budgets do not reveal a material redirection of this approach. do not reveal a material redirection of this approach.
I’m not sure I’d share Paul’s faith in cost-savings-through-better-architecture. That’s not how it works, at least for a number of years. At first, it’s a struggle to keep better architecture from being an additive cost. Then, you simply do a better job with the available budget. Actual IT cost savings are more of a distant hope.
But that all fits. The Federal Government could be a LOT more effective with better IT.
