Case Study 1
IRS Requirements Creep, Revisited
Read the “Requirements Creep at the IRS" case on page 9. In response to the problems that it identified, the IRS Oversight Board recommended the following two actions: '
*“The IRS business units must take direct leadership and ownership of the Modernization program and each of its projects. In particular, this must include defining the scope of each project, preparing realistic and attainable business cases, and controlling scope changes throughout each project’s life cycle..."
*“Create an environment of trust, confidence, and teamwork between the business units, the BSM and ITS organizations, and the Prime”
Questions
1.Why did the Oversight Board place leadership and ownership of the Modernization program on the business units? Wiry did it not place these responsibilities on the Information Technology Services (ITS) organization?
2.Why did the Oversight Board place the responsibility for controlling scope changes on the business units? Why was this responsibility not given to the BSM?To ITS? To Computer Sciences Corporation?
3.The second recommendation is a difficult assignment, especially considering the size of the IRS and the complexity of the project. How does one go about creating “an environment of trust, confidence, and teamwork”?
To make this recommendation more comprehensible, translate it to your local university. Suppose, for example, that your College of Business embarked on a program to modernize its computing facilities, including computer labs, and the computer network facilities used for teaching, including Internet-based distance learning. Suppose that the Business School dean created a committee like the BSM that hired a vendor to create the new computing facilities for the college. Suppose further that the committee proceeded without any involvement of the faculty, staff, students, or the existing computer support department. Finally, suppose that the project was one year late, had spent $400,000, was not nearly finished—and that the vendor complained that the requirements kept changing.
Now assume that you have been given the responsibility of creating "an environment of trust, confidence, and teamwork" among the faculty, staff,
' other users, the computer support department, and the vendor. How would you proceed?
4.The problem in question 3 involves at most a few hundred people and a few sites. The IRS problem involves 100,000 people and over 1,000 sites. How would you modify your answer to question 3 for a project as large as
Tf-5. If the existing system works (which apparently it does), why is the BSM needed? Why fix a system that works?