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Miami-Dade school district and Deloitte: 'Endless money pit'

By | January 13, 2009, 6:53am PST

Summary: Deloitte seems to hit the IT failures radar with some frequency. Miami-Dade school district’s SAP implementation is the most recent Deloitte project to come across my desk.


Deloitte seems to hit the IT failures radar with some frequency. Miami-Dade school district’s (MDCPS) SAP implementation is the most recent Deloitte project to come across my desk. Although this implementation is clearly running late, the extent of delays is ambiguous.

Teachdade.com notes:

How far behind schedule is MDCPS’s BOSS project? Depends who you ask. According to KPMG, the company hired by the district to audit its floundering software overhaul, the project is running “approximately four weeks behind schedule.” Deloitte Consulting, the company charged with implementing BOSS, echos the one-month lag. But in a Nov. 7 memo to the School Board, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho says BOSS is as much as four months behind.

Then again, if you ask TD, none of the three billion-dollar institutions has it right….[I]t appears that Carvalho has missed the mark by a half a year.

The June 2008 video shows former Miami Deputy Superintendent of Business Operations, Ofelia San Pedro, assuring Board member, Renier Diaz de la Portilla, that the project will remain within budget. Renier calls the project an “endless money pit” while Ofelia offers a spirited defense.

Ofelia states the project is within budget, but appears to also say planned scope was cut to achieve this goal. Reducing scope is a common tactic to mask budget overruns, by “pretending” the project is smaller than originally scheduled.

Given the ambiguities, we will definitely see more of this one.

[Via an anonymous reader submission. No party in this dispute blamed SAP, according to my research to date.]

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Michael Krigsman is a recognized authority on the causes and prevention of IT failures.

Disclosure

Michael Krigsman

Michael Krigsman writes and speaks about technology in a manner that most observers consider to be fair and balanced. Michael believes that writing about IT failures, which often have complex causes, creates a unique obligation to be reasonable and accurate in both reporting and analysis.

Michael maintains active personal and professional relationships with enterprise technology buyers, vendors, analyst firms (or individual analysts), consultants, and system integrators. As CEO of Asuret, Michael sells and delivers paid services to members of these same groups.

Vendors regularly reimburse Michael's out-of-pocket travel expenses to attend industry conferences and events. Conference organizers frequently waive entry fees when Michael attends industry events. Michael often speaks at industry conferences and events.

He is a member of the Enterprise Irregulars, a loose association of consultants, investors, industry representatives, analysts, and users of enterprise software.

For daily updates on Michael's activities, follow him on Twitter.

Biography

Michael Krigsman

Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a consulting company dedicated to reducing technology implementation failures. Asuret's suite of software tools improve the success rate of enterprise software deployments by quantifying and measuring governance issues that cause most project failures. Michael led the research effort underlying Asuret's model of collective intelligence and its practical application to reducing IT failures in consulting environments. He is a recognized authority on the causes and prevention of IT failures and is frequently quoted in the press on IT project and related CIO issues. He is considered an enterprise software industry "influencer" and provides advice to technology buyers, vendors, and services firms.

Previously, Michael served as CEO of Cambridge Publications, which develops tools and processes for software implementations and related business practice automation projects. Michael has been involved with hundreds of software development projects, for companies ranging from small startups to Fortune 500 organizations. Michael graduated with an M.B.A. from Boston University and a B.A. from Bard College. He is a Board member of the America's Cup Hall of Fame and the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, RI.

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