Computer Collapse.

The recent news about the collapse of the FBI's Virtual Case File project has once again thrown the spotlight on federal agencies' abysmal record with respect to large-scale information technology efforts. I think this situation is about to attract the attention of members of Congress in a big way. As the federal budget gets tighter and tighter, the patience with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on IT upgrades that don't work will get thinner and thinner. But don't expect much to come out of the heightened concern, for several reasons:

• Agencies have big problems accomplishing their missions, and it's always tempting to look to solve them with big IT projects.
• These projects provide lots of money to huge federal contractors.
• It's not just the government that has trouble pulling off such mega-projects. Corporations mess them up all the time. They just don't get the scrutiny of congressional committees when they do. Upgrading IT infrastructure is just a messy process--always has been, always will be.