This weekend, I picked up my issue of the IEEE Spectrum which they've devoted to software failures and started reading the fascinating article: Who Killed the Virtual Case File? It details the FBI's failed Virtual Case File System from its start to its mind-numbing $170M collapse into a steaming pile of unusable code, 800 pages of recommendations, and quite a few destroyed careers. It's absolutely stunning with respect to poor project management, so I'm going to focus on this article for a couple days to lay out where some of their biggest mistakes were and potential ways the risks could have been mitigated.
About halfway through the article, this quote floored me:
Mueller blamed himself for the delay, because he'd asked for an accelerated schedule. But Higgins blamed Mueller's staff for not being straight with him about his agency's ability to deliver what he wanted.
"Did somebody come to you and say, okay, Mr. Director, sir, you can have it sooner, but it's going to cost you this much more money or you're going to have to do without something?" Higgins remembered asking Mueller. "And he said, 'No, nobody ever told me that.' And I said, 'Well, lesson No. 1: faster, cheaper, better. Pick two, but you can't have all three.'
Wow.