RE: New Presentation (was Re: At I.R.S., a Systems Update Gone Aw ry)

["Mcgrath, Bob___PI_Mkt" <bob.mcgrath@xxxxxxxxxx>]

If you are into new presentations, the one that I think needs fleshing out
is one on voter roll purges and some of the dangers inherent in the
centralized database aspects of HAVA.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pezzillo [mailto:jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 9:56 AM
To: bcv@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: New Presentation (was Re: At I.R.S., a Systems Update Gone
Awry)



Paul and others who have posted these articles about large systems 
problems:

I've been pursuing a parallel idea about the many benefits of Paper, 
and have been enlisting the extremely helpful folks over at the Boulder 
Public Library research desk.

I see a second presentation, or a "companion" presentation that is more 
like a high school civics filmstrip:

"Electronic Voting : No Paper, No Confidence"

* First some simple background on the issue

* Then a "dire warning" about the specific concerns with these systems, 
culminating in how even a paper audit trail is useless

* Then heap on the inability of large computer systems to solve 
problems by top-down mandate (also, did you know that something like 
only 30% of large custom software projects are ever completed to the 
customer's satisfaction).

* Enter: Paper. All praise paper: (supposedly, we're still tracking 
this report down:) Library of Congress, when asked to determine the 
best long-term archival storage format given the plethora of choices on 
the market today (DVD, Laser Disk, CDROM) chose "Acid Free Paper" 
because it's the only media guaranteed to be readable in 100 years.

Then SELL the Paper Ballot / Vote Marking Machine vision.

If we need a name for these devices I propose something like "Direct 
Mark Paper" (DMP)

I know, I know, more work for us.

Joe




On Dec 11, 2003, at 2:34 AM, Paul Tiger wrote:

> My point in sending this to the CVV list is that this is another 
> example of
> what happens when the government mandates computer projects. Its also 
> going
> to the Boulder LP list, and that does not need explanation.
> Paul Tiger
> -----
> December 11, 2003
>
> At I.R.S., a Systems Update Gone Awry
> By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON for the New York Times
>
> After five years, a project to replace the Internal Revenue Service's 
> aging
> file-keeping computer system with modern technology is so far behind
> schedule that the I.R.S. has told the prime contractor that unless it
> improves its performance by the end of the month, the government may 
> have no
> choice but to fire it.
>
> The project, which was expected to cost $8 billion when completed, has 
> spent
> less than $1 billion so far, but it is already 40 percent over budget 
> for
> what it has done, according to the I.R.S. Oversight Board, an 
> independent
> watchdog body that Congress created in 1998.
>
> Most taxpayers are younger than the computer system that the I.R.S. 
> relies
> on to maintain its master files on individuals and businesses - all the
> records of who they are, where they are, their income, taxes paid, and 
> the
> amounts they still owe or are owed as refunds.
>
> The I.R.S. says it can still process returns and send out refunds on 
> time,
> but its dependence on the 1960's-era Assembler and Cobol computer 
> languages
> makes it difficult to investigate and resolve taxpayers' problems. 
> Finding a
> record using the existing system can take a week; the new system is 
> supposed
> to do the job in seconds.
>
> "This is not about a one-time delay," said Larry Levitan, chairman of 
> the
> Oversight Board. "Every single major project under way experienced a
> significant delay in time and overrun in budget - not two or three out 
> of
> five, but five out of five. What we have here is a five-year track 
> record of
> absolute consistency of cost overruns and delayed deliveries."
>
> Big computer modernization projects often run late and cost more than
> anticipated. But even given the size of a system for the I.R.S. - one 
> that
> must keep track of 200 million taxpayers and an increasingly complex 
> tax
> code - the project is not succeeding, according to the board and to 
> senior
> I.R.S. executives. The contractor, the Computer Sciences Corporation 
> of El
> Segundo, Calif., must show improvement before the end of the year or 
> face
> losing the contract, they said.
>
> "If they don't produce we will make a change," Mark W. Everson, the 
> I.R.S.
> commissioner, said of the contractor, even though experts at Carnegie 
> Mellon
> University in Pittsburgh said that starting over with a new company 
> would
> "probably result in different but no fewer problems along the way" - 
> and
> delay the new system, which is called the Customer Account Data 
> Engine, by
> two or three years.
>
> "I would not enter lightly into rupturing the relationship," Mr. 
> Everson
> said. "It is not a desirable outcome to abandon the relationship, but 
> that
> does not mean we won't do that if we have to."
>
> Paul M. Cofoni, president of the Computer Sciences unit running the 
> project,
> CSC Federal Sector, said "in the early part of the program we did a 
> poor job
> of defining" what needed to be done. But that was in large measure 
> because
> the I.R.S. had no records of many changes to its old system, he said, 
> and
> was reluctant to approve specifications for the new system until it 
> could be
> sure the system would be able to find and display all the old 
> information.
>
> Mr. Cofoni said that many of those problems were being addressed.
>
> "I can actually see daylight now," he said in a telephone interview. 
> "We
> were given an action list of 46 items to be done in 30 days, and 85 
> percent
> of them were. We're at the point where we are starting to deliver, and 
> when
> we're done people are going to say this is an outstanding, 
> award-winning
> system."
>
> In a report being distributed to the Bush administration and Congress, 
> the
> Oversight Board said that it had not seen improvement in three years, 
> and
> added that Computer Sciences' performance "must be monitored very 
> closely
> and if significant improvements are not demonstrated quickly a change 
> should
> and must be made."
>
> Mr. Levitan of the Oversight Board said that the project was "losing
> credibility with Treasury, with the Office of Management and Budget 
> and with
> Congress."
>
> Five years into the project, some aspects are as much as 27 months 
> behind
> schedule.
>
> While the project to modernize the main file-keeping computer has
> encountered serious problems, other technology projects have worked,
> including a system developed by Computer Sciences that tracks the 
> status of
> refunds and quickly routes calls from taxpayers to appropriate people 
> to
> answer questions. Mr. Everson said this had allowed him to put more 
> I.R.S.
> executives on the troubled project, although, as a result, the agency 
> had to
> set aside ancillary modernization projects.
>
> Mr. Levitan and others said that Congress needed to let the I.R.S. 
> hire more
> executives who understand computers. Mr. Levitan said the agency 
> relied too
> heavily on a single executive, Fred L. Forman, for computer management
> expertise. Dr. Forman, a former executive with American Management 
> Systems,
> joined the I.R.S. in the middle of 2001 as an adviser to the 
> modernization
> project and now serves as an associate commissioner.
>
> "The I.R.S. needs 10 to 15 Fred Formans," Mr. Levitan said. "They have 
> got
> some good people, but they don't have nearly enough to manage the 
> program."
>
> Major corporations often upgrade their systems as technology improves. 
> The
> I.R.S. went four decades with the same system because two previous
> modernization attempts, the most recent in the mid-1990's, failed, 
> costing
> taxpayers $4 billion. Much of the problem involves the risks 
> associated with
> moving from one system to another. The current plan, begun in 1998, 
> was to
> build the new system, import data and then turn off the old system.
>
> But Charles O. Rossotti, the tax commissioner from 1997 through 2002, 
> found
> that approach fraught with danger. Mr. Rossotti, the founder of 
> American
> Management Systems, who was brought into the agency after the earlier
> modernization efforts failed, wanted to keep the old system going as 
> data
> was moved to the new system in segments, beginning with the simplest 
> tax
> returns, the one-page Form 1040EZ's, to insure reliable access to 
> taxpayer
> records.
>
> Mr. Levitan said that Mr. Rossotti brought technological coherence 
> that has
> averted disaster. But he also says a collapse is inevitable without a 
> new
> system, because the few people who could keep the old system 
> functioning are
> close to retiring.
>
>