GetndCarVC

Description of the System:

The Virtual Case File (VCF) fiasco began in September 2000 when Congress approved $379.8 million over three years to develop a software project called Trilogy. Science Application International Corp (SAIC) based out of San Diego was awarded the Trilogy contract by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Trilogy project was broken down into three parts: The Information Presentation Component, the Transportation Network, and the User Applications Component.

The Information Presentation Component merely upgraded electronic hardware within the agency including upgrading to Dell Pentium PC’s, scanners, printers, and servers.

The Transportation Network would provide a secure local area and a wide area network that allows agents in offices or in the field to communicate securely with each other.

The biggest part of Trilogy was the User Applications Component, which later became known as the Virtual Case file. The Virtual Case File itself included the Automated Case Support System, IntelPlus, Criminal Law Enforcement Application, Integrated Intelligence Information Application, and Telephone Application.

The entire VCF system was intended to integrate data and eventually replace older investigation systems such as the Automated Case Support System. The Trilogy system would have allowed agents to obtain information on known offenders quicker while out in the field.

History:

In September 2000, the VCF project began with the goals of improving the flow of information between offices around the world and field agents. The project was to be finished and operational in 2003.

High turnover rate of agents was also a major problem. While SAIC was working on the project, there were four CIO changes along with fourteen manager changes. This made establishing a stable requirements document for VCF a challenge.

In September of 2001 when terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York, the FBI then made a major change. Focus of the Trilogy project was shifted to include terrorist profiles and activities. Because of this shift, the date for completion of VCF was delayed to 2004.

Today, the project has not been scraped, but the FBI is learning from their prior mistakes. Instead of having the entire system coded, commercially created software systems are being examined for use in the VCF.

Size of System:

The Virtual Case File cost the FBI and the United States government an estimated $170 million with over 200 full time employees. The project ran over budget by $120 million and was delayed for 21 months.

Causes of Failure:

A major cause of failure to the VCF project was the high turnover rate of IT managers. This made communication between IT managers working for the FBI and contracted software engineers difficult, for different IT managers have different perspectives and methods for implementation.

Another problem that branched off of high turnover rate of IT managers is the lack of an overall architecture of the VCF project. Had a detailed description of the system been made available, new IT managers may have been able to read what previous managers had opted for. This would have also helped ease communication problems between IT managers and software engineers.

A cause of failure that is very difficult for such large organizations to control is how employees adapt new processes. Though it is easier for new employees to use newer processes, more senior employees are more accustomed to using the older processes. Therefore, it was very difficult for employees of the FBI to actually use what portions of the VCF was available.

Lessons Learned:

Although the Virtual Case File is a complete failure, many lessons were learned. The most critical problem came not with the actual programming, but rather with communication between the FBI and the contractors. With so many changes in management, there were many misinterpretations between managers. The most important position that should have a zero turnover rate is the director taking charge of the entire project. The VCF should have always been striving towards the same goal from the start to the end, and this would have been easily regulated by a single director through the duration of the project. Overall, the main problem is that the FBI had an inexperienced IT group.

Another minor lesson learned with regards to system of such magnitude is to only deploy when the project is complete and has undergone through integration testing.

It was also made apparent in reports that the VCF was not allowed enough time to be fully tested. For that reason, due to the number of bugs present that were never addressed in the code, not only was the VCF scraped, but the code was rendered useless.