Part I · *What was the situation and how important was the system for the US Census Bureau? · *How does the system impact operational activities and decision making? · *What are the key risk factors of the project? · *Classify and describe the problems faced? · *What management, organizational, and technology factors caused those problems? · *Describe the steps you would have taken to control the risks in this project. Part II · *What was the relationship between the technology and the end users who would use the technology? · *What was the relationship between the technology and the Census Bureau management? · *What was the lifespan of the technology?

 

U.S. Census Bureau signed a $600 million contract with Harris corporation in 2006 to build 500,000 devices, but still wasn’t sure which features they wanted included in the units. Census officials did not specify the testing process to measure the performance of the handheld devices. Four hundred change requests were added to the project requirements. Two years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars later, the handhelds were far too slow and unreliable to be used for the 2010 U.S. census.

-To answer the questions, you may want to consider the following readings:

http://harris.com/view_pressrelease.asp?act=lookup&pr_id=1818

http://www.census.gov/2010census/news/releases/operations/census-bureau-awards-600-million-contract-to-support-automation-project.html

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2010/06/02/the-census-bureaus-recent-history-of-throwing-billions-of-dollars-down-the-drain/

http://www.mytwocensus.com/tag/harris-corporation/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/billion-dollar-it-failure-at-census-bureau/

https://www.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Census_Evaluation_of_Automation_in_Field_Data_Collection_in_Address_Canvassing_Report.pdf

 

Based on the readings above, please answer the following.

Part I

·        *What was the situation and how important was the system for the US Census Bureau?

·        *How does the system impact operational activities and decision making?

·        *What are the key risk factors of the project?

·        *Classify and describe the problems faced?

·        *What management, organizational, and technology factors caused those problems?

·        *Describe the steps you would have taken to control the risks in this project.

Part II

·        *What was the relationship between the technology and the end users who would use the technology?

·        *What was the relationship between the technology and the Census Bureau management?

·        *What was the lifespan of the technology?

·        *Theoretically, how was the data that was going to be generated by the system going to be used?  Practically, what occurred?  Why?

·        *Given the confidential nature of the census, how could the cloud based technologies pose a risk to privacy?

·        *Given the advances in cloud computing, describe a basic architecture for how such a system could be implemented today.

·        *How was employee use of the system?

·        *What could Census Bureau management and the Harris Corporation have done to prevent or change the outcome to be more positive?

 

 

• read the readings to answer the questions
• post any sources or refrences
• must be done on time