Q. President Obama's HealthCare.gov website has been problematic, to say the least. What lessons can be learned?

A. One of the defining moments of President Obama's presidency is the crash of the health website developed to
provide Americans with online health insurance. Lots of lessons can be learned from the saga:

• Big IT projects often fail
• Spending $630 million does not mean it will work
• Business owners are often unsure what they want or keep changing what they want
• It is often unclear who the business owners are
• Be clear what your priorities are
• Project managers for large IT projects need IT knowledge and skills, even if only to scope what needs to be done
• Splitting different parts of an IT project between different companies can result in major gaps in communications
• Planning, coding and testing need similar amounts of time
• When major problems are identified, nobody wants to tell the business owner
• The person responsible for the project needs to be powerful
• This stuff is hard to do right and takes time
• Don't over-promise and under-deliver
• It's going to be hacked, are you ready for that?
• If it is not ready, don't go live
• If you can avoid it, stay away from large IT projects, they shorten your life.

If you are interested in exploring this area, there is a great book, Death March by Edward Yourdon. 'Death march' refers to the effect of these projects on the people working on them.