HealthCare.gov Lessons: Picking An IT Consultant
Davis
It's not often that the management of technology makes national news, but that was the case recently when the federal website behind the much-talked-about Obamacare ran into big technical snafus went it went live Oct. 1.
HealthCare.gov is supposed to allow Americans to buy health insurance. There were reports of the site freezing, and a recent article in USA Today reported that only 30 percent of people were able to get through the site's system to enroll in a health plan.
Imagine how the lead developer on that project feels. I bet he's thought about calling out sick a few times.
To anyone who's worked on software development, it's not all that surprising. Developing a website that millions are planning to use is difficult. Doing that within a federal bureaucracy and on a three-year timeline is very difficult.
The good news is that those outside the HealthCare.gov project can learn some valuable lessons from this debacle.
Tales From The Trenches
To find out what those lessons are, I spoke to Edward G. Verlander, chairman of the New York consulting firm Verlander, Wang & Co. LLC, and author of the book, “The Practice of Professional Consulting.” Verlander works with IT firms as well as their clients and has formulated a set of best practices for large IT projects.
The first step to ensure your IT project doesn't go off the rails is one that's often skipped or done too quickly: needs assessment.
In fact, Verlander posited that our culture may predispose us to be bad at it.
“The mindset in the United States is that we don't plan, we execute,” he said.
So, if you find yourself in charge of a website redesign or software rollout, make sure you take the time to carefully plot out the project, including identifying the problems you're trying to solve. And be sure to meet — a lot.
“Spend more time getting more people involved — the stakeholders, the end users, other functional managers,” Verlander said. “Make sure there's enough time spent meeting, talking and thinking it through.”
Another challenge with IT projects is that they often involve outside firms, which need to be managed differently than staff members. And when you bring in an IT consultant, make sure this person and his or her firm is going to work well with your in-house team. Verlander identified for me his six “E's” for evaluating an IT consultant: edge, ethics, energy, energized, enterprise and execution.
Edge refers to whether the consultant has something that makes him or her stand out. Is it their personality? Their education? Their experience? No matter what it is, every IT consultant should have something that makes him or her special, and that something should mesh with your company's needs.
Ethics is pretty straightforward. Of course you want to work with a consultant who has strong ethics. Verlander suggests asking them what ethical problems or challenges they've had to deal with, or give them an ethical quandary and ask them how they would handle it.
The third E, energy, refers to the consultant's thinking and behavior. You want an IT consultant who has energy and excitement about their work, not someone who seems ready for a nap.
Somewhat related, but slightly different is the fourth E, energized. This refers to how the consultant makes you feel. Are you intrigued by this person and her ideas? If so, that's a good sign.
Enterprise refers to the consultant's understanding of the business environment. Does he have an enterprising spirit? Does he understand how your IT project will impact your business overall?
The final E, execution, gets at the consultant's track record. Does he or she have a history of getting things done? Without that evidence, you may want to keep looking for a consultant.
Once an IT consultant is selected, it's important to design a clear strategy.
Verlander recommends using the agile method of project management, because it requires the IT consultant to set up regular, if not daily, meetings with the client to review progress and questions.
With that kind of management “there's a constant process of negotiation taking place,” and problems can be identified and solved much faster.
While managing IT is often described as a headache, it doesn't have to be. With the right planning, the right partners, and the right communication, IT projects can run on schedule and — gasp! — on budget.
Christina Davis can be reached at davis@wbjournal.com.
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