"The FBI's Upgrade That Wasn't: $170 Million Bought an Unusable Computer System"

Read the full article by Dan Eggen and Griff Witte in today's Washington Post (August 18, 2006).

This article shows how hard it can be to develop a major governmental software application, and how expensive a failure can be. The Virtual Case File (VCF) system was planned by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to replace its paper system for case management. The old system reflected 1920's technology. Initiated before 9/11, the project priority increased greatly after the terrorist attack, as did its budget.

According to the article, "the collapse of the attempt to remake the FBI's filing system stemmed from failures of almost every kind, including poor conception and muddled execution of the steps needed to make the system work, according to outside reviews and interviews with people involved in the project......the FBI made a fateful choice: It wanted SAIC to build the new software system from scratch rather than modifying commercially available, off-the-shelf software......By early 2004......thousands of new PCs and an integrated hardware network were well on the way to being delivered and installed. But, as the researchers soon learned, the heart of the makeover, VCF, remained badly off track......the FBI planned to launch the new software all at once, with minimal testing beforehand. Doing so.....could cause 'mission-disruptive failures' if the software did not work, because the FBI had no backup plan.....'If the new system didn't work, it would have just put the FBI out of business.'" The decision was made in early 2005 to abandon the VCF project. "Last year, FBI officials announced a replacement for VCF, named Sentinel, that is projected to cost $425 million and will not be fully operational until 2009."

The authors imply that the FBI staff did not include sufficient expertise to manage an ICT project of this kind and magnitude, but that the major contractor was also at fault. External evaluations of the project done by a contractor (for US&2million) and the National Research Council illuminated the problems with the project, and helped senior FBI management with the termination decision. But without sufficient in-house knowledge, major software development projects, on which organizations bet their survival (or ours) are very dangerous!