Fixing Healthcare.gov

HEADLINE:

Seeing the ‘evidence’ that has been allowed to be leaked to date, there is NO WAY that a reasonable system called Healthcare.GOV can be delivered by the stated goal timeframe of November 30, 2013, and here is why…

Part One of Three – The Truth about Healthcare.gov

Part Two of Three – The Challenges

Part Three of Three – What Went Wrong and Forward Steps

This is thelast of a three part series that looks at the rollout of Healthcare.gov, its management, process, and the likelihood that the full, functional website will be operational by the (current) stated deadline of 11/30/13.

Part Three: What Went Wrong and Forward Steps

What Went Wrong?

Well, it doesn’t take a project manager to see why Healthcare.gov has been a dismal FAILURE.

The major issues, in my mind are:

· Management:

There was no one serving as the Project Manager. No Gate Keeper. No single point of decision-making, accountability or scope control; and an embarrassing lack of testing! Those who were in Technical leadership of the program, need their children to program their VCR’s.

· Competent, knowledgeable, experienced leadership

There was no trained, experienced project leadership. There was no one with the courage to say to the president, many many months ago that they were headed for the iceberg.

· Project Content

Scope changes were allowed in the last weeks prior to roll-out, when the system should have been in Functionality Testing!

· Testing

· Little end-to-end testing occurred

· No Stress Testing, no User Testing

If we can believe news reports, testing was virtually ignored. Unit testing happened at the completion of the module but, there was no end-to-end testing conducted until the last weeks. And the primary sin of omission is that the president was kept unaware of the current state of the system. This resulted in personal embarrassment as well as a highly damage the worthwhile Affordable Healthcare Act.

· Schedule

The end date was defined by politicians with absolutely no idea of what was occurring, what needed to occur, and no assessment of the impact of allowed scope changes.

CONCLUSIONS

It is no wonder that Healthcare.gov is a disaster! The proper job positions are not defined. The proper people are not in the right positions. The proper processes are not defined or followed. Politicians are defining delivery dates before they even know what is possible – to deliver a Quality product to Americas.

It is a classic case of the blind leading the unwilling, to an unknown destination, with a ‘Drop Dead” date. Unfortunately, in the most recent reports, I do not see that the recent corrective actions by the politicians will have any other result that to drive the “Front Door” (healthcare.gov) to a needed and worthwhile program, further into the ditch.

Information Technology Reality

Good + Fast = Expensive

Choose good and fast and we will postpone every other job, cancel all appointments and stay up 25-hours a day just to get your job done. But, don’t expect it to be cheap.

Good + Cheap = Slow

Choose good and cheap and we will do a great job for a discounted price, but be patient until we have a free moment from paying clients.

Fast + Cheap = Inferior

Choose fast and cheap and expect an inferior job delivered on time. You truly get what you pay for, and in our opinion this is the least favorable choice of the three.

The politicians can waive their hands and spin the facts all that they want. It will NOT change this Information Technology Reality

This Just In:

According to information published on November 4, 2013, full testing of HealthCare.gov began too late. Here is a diagram that provides an overview of this comedy of errors. It confirms what I have been saying in this article – Courtesy of The Washington Post:

Forward Steps:

Potential forward steps for this initiative, which will provide the best possible application to the Citizen Customers, in the best timeframe:

Remove all deadlines, fees, fines and penalties from the Public, until we know we have a viable, successful, deployable system – and THEN set the needed timeframes out for comment.
Remove this silly (and unachievable) November 30, 2013 from the public lexicon.
Conduct an independent review, by professionals familiar with this type of system; assess the program from Design Specification to Deployment
Decide if this baby needs to be thrown out with the bathwater
Appoint a qualified (internal to the government) Program Manager who has the power to make the needed decisions, hire the right people, fire the deadwood.
Remove this silly (and unachievable) November 30, 2013 from the public lexicon.
Set a goal to define the forward plan of Healthcare.gov, by the end of 2013.
Lastly, but most importantly, hire Professional Project Leaders and Technical people who are set up for success, from the beginning.
Learn the Lessons to be learned and never again allow Politicians to do work for which they are not qualified!
Never allow an ill-informed outsider from the greater Project Team announce a date for deployment!

What should a great Website look like?

HubSpot has put together a guide where design experts reveal four elements of great website design that encourage conversions. A site must be:

Aesthetically Beautiful - be visually appealing so visitors stick around
Optimized for the User - make it easy for visitors to understand the next step
Personalized and Contextual - show the right content to the right people
Optimized for Mobile - make your site experience consistent on phones and tablets
Above all, functionally solid and blindingly fast

The Leadership team’s primary Sin? They (not the programmers) let the country down!

The Leadership team’s secondary Sin? They (not the programmers) let the Boss (President Obama) down!

For Further Reading:

Here’s everything you need to know about Obamacare’s error-plagued websites

Healthcare.gov Website: Who’s To Blame?

HealthCare.gov: How political fear was pitted against technical needs

Full testing of HealthCare.gov began too late, contractors say

Coming Next: A very interesting several months!

Go to: Part One Part Two Part Three

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Mr. Feightner is an over-50, proud citizen of this great country. He is Independent in political persuasion, unfortunately a widower, and has two great Sons, and a few great Grandchildren. He has been a career professional, a scientist by degree and practice. He is member of the Project Management Institute, is a Certified Computer Professional, hasva BS degree in Program Management. He has solid experience (30+ years) in the computing field gained thorough hands-on in-the-field Program Management on three continents. He tends to deal in facts and observe my surroundings with cautious skepticism. He can smell BS a mile away; in the case of Washington DC, a tad further.

He has publishing two books, Maintains a small author consulting business, and writes for the associated blog. (http://ViewsfromSandhausen.com).

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