Saturday, March 31, 2007

Cross Department Programs Don't Work

From a Washington Times report on the findings of the DOJ OIG:

A partnership begun in 2004 by the Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury departments to create an Integrated Wireless Network has "fractured" and is at a "high risk for failure," according to a government report issued yesterday.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that despite years of development and more than $195 million in funding, the project "does not appear to be on the path" to providing the seamless interoperable communications system envisioned.
"The causes for the high risk of project failure include uncertain and disparate funding mechanisms for IWN, the fractured IWN partnership and the lack of an effective governing structure for the project," Mr. Fine said.

Reminds me of the abortive USDA projects for cross-agency computerization. Same sort of problems, even though the issues were at the agency level and not the department level. Things like OMB and GSA were developed as cross-governmental institutions, but they took a long time to get going.

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