Healthcare.gov Glitches - A Classic Service Delivery nightmare!
Healthcare.Gov site is considered by its visitors as HealthScare.Gov! No, these are not politicians. These are ordinary well meaning visitors who opine so. The glitches in the website are discussed and written about in the media widely. Democrats were glad that they were able to thwart the efforts of the Republicans and the Tea Party supporters. However, the Republicans and the Tea Party are happy that the blunders and the software glitches are killing Obamacare.
Purely from the Service Delivery aspect, I list the causes for the failure in the implementation of the web based application. You name the failures in small to very large implementations and you will find it here.
1. Ambiguous Requirements: With all the players involved - Federal and State governments; Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Courts, Interest groups (Insurance, Physicians, Hospitals, Drug Companies, Citizens…) – There are conflicting requirements. Interpretations by each of these groups were contradicting. And… the Software developer had their own understanding!
2. Unbelievable deadline: Nothing was crystal clear until the court cleared the ACA. The Budget sessions added to the uncertainty of the Act getting implemented.
3. Unclear participants – Some states are in, some States are not. But data were collected from all states. What to include and what to exclude were a herculean task.
4. Lack of Ownership – No single provider owned the Program. Multiple contractors (purportedly 15+ )were awarded the contract for developing the various pieces of the Application
5. As multiple organizations developed different pieces of the Application no one was responsible for integrating all the pieces together.
6. Inadequate testing before launch: To name essential testings such as Development, Integration, Interface, Hardware, Communication, Fail over, Simulation, Negative, Cut-over, Pre-production--- all would have been just ran over which is totally untenable and unacceptable in these implementations.
7. Unprepared for the enormous hits on the site – Inadequate Server capacity, Bandwidth, Backups
8. Volumes of data downloaded and uploaded with every single user
9. Lack of sharing of information among various players
10. Privacy and Secrecy issues among Govt departments
11. Needless to say, launched the product prematurely
12. Change Management is either non-existent or in total chaos
13. Unsuitable Project Management approach – AGILE! Unsuitable for Essential services site such as these. There cannot be frequent requirement changes and instant implementation and roll out to production in critical essential services applications. Shut down is inevitable. Changes would be rolled out without any testing. Haste makes waste.
14. No Cross group coordination or management
15. Operational Risk – either not assessed at all or not mitigated: No scope for any workarounds.
16. Architecture: Inefficient programming techniques resulting in loops and spaghetti loops; high traffic of data going back and forth between the end user and the host computers. User access and security controls rigmarole.
17. Expectation setting: everything cannot be achieved by automation. There are areas which need to be addressed through Process re engineering.
18. Flood gate should not have been opened to the entire nation on a single day. Must have been in phases for different States on different days. Could have averted millions logging in at the same time.
While all these defects are there, changes, modifications, and corrections have to be done in a methodical and fast paced manner. In the meanwhile, workarounds have to be put in place. Politicians and everyone else should do the damage control and buy time. Software challenges such as these are not new to this country or other countries. Example: India’s railway booking system had major glitches for a few years. People learned to live with it for a period and eventually the system became very efficient and probably one of the best software applications of this size running efficiently.
Leadership and time are key.
Healthcare.Gov site is considered by its visitors as HealthScare.Gov! No, these are not politicians. These are ordinary well meaning visitors who opine so. The glitches in the website are discussed and written about in the media widely. Democrats were glad that they were able to thwart the efforts of the Republicans and the Tea Party supporters. However, the Republicans and the Tea Party are happy that the blunders and the software glitches are killing Obamacare.
Purely from the Service Delivery aspect, I list the causes for the failure in the implementation of the web based application. You name the failures in small to very large implementations and you will find it here.
1. Ambiguous Requirements: With all the players involved - Federal and State governments; Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Courts, Interest groups (Insurance, Physicians, Hospitals, Drug Companies, Citizens…) – There are conflicting requirements. Interpretations by each of these groups were contradicting. And… the Software developer had their own understanding!
2. Unbelievable deadline: Nothing was crystal clear until the court cleared the ACA. The Budget sessions added to the uncertainty of the Act getting implemented.
3. Unclear participants – Some states are in, some States are not. But data were collected from all states. What to include and what to exclude were a herculean task.
4. Lack of Ownership – No single provider owned the Program. Multiple contractors (purportedly 15+ )were awarded the contract for developing the various pieces of the Application
5. As multiple organizations developed different pieces of the Application no one was responsible for integrating all the pieces together.
6. Inadequate testing before launch: To name essential testings such as Development, Integration, Interface, Hardware, Communication, Fail over, Simulation, Negative, Cut-over, Pre-production--- all would have been just ran over which is totally untenable and unacceptable in these implementations.
7. Unprepared for the enormous hits on the site – Inadequate Server capacity, Bandwidth, Backups
8. Volumes of data downloaded and uploaded with every single user
9. Lack of sharing of information among various players
10. Privacy and Secrecy issues among Govt departments
11. Needless to say, launched the product prematurely
12. Change Management is either non-existent or in total chaos
13. Unsuitable Project Management approach – AGILE! Unsuitable for Essential services site such as these. There cannot be frequent requirement changes and instant implementation and roll out to production in critical essential services applications. Shut down is inevitable. Changes would be rolled out without any testing. Haste makes waste.
14. No Cross group coordination or management
15. Operational Risk – either not assessed at all or not mitigated: No scope for any workarounds.
16. Architecture: Inefficient programming techniques resulting in loops and spaghetti loops; high traffic of data going back and forth between the end user and the host computers. User access and security controls rigmarole.
17. Expectation setting: everything cannot be achieved by automation. There are areas which need to be addressed through Process re engineering.
18. Flood gate should not have been opened to the entire nation on a single day. Must have been in phases for different States on different days. Could have averted millions logging in at the same time.
While all these defects are there, changes, modifications, and corrections have to be done in a methodical and fast paced manner. In the meanwhile, workarounds have to be put in place. Politicians and everyone else should do the damage control and buy time. Software challenges such as these are not new to this country or other countries. Example: India’s railway booking system had major glitches for a few years. People learned to live with it for a period and eventually the system became very efficient and probably one of the best software applications of this size running efficiently.
Leadership and time are key.
No comments:
Post a Comment