Reality Always Trips Up IT

At the very end of a Politico article recounting the Census Bureau's problems with their IT contractor, comes this concrete example, which strikes me funny:

But others suggest that the real clash may be cultural, and Harris’ success in the defense field has been harder to repeat given the often unique demands of the Census.

For example, there are about 7 million blocks of addresses in the United States, of which about 2,400 have more than 700 addresses per block. This became a problem for the Census when handheld computers used in the address canvassing had trouble processing more than 750 addresses per block, one official said.

Harris said that its equipment can overcome any such hurdle in a “timely, secure and accurate manner.”

“They didn’t [work] in the dress rehearsal,” the official said. “Do we have to specify that it has to work in Manhattan?”

I guarantee some Census people understood the requirements, but they obviously didn't get communicated to Harris (the IT contractor). Another example of how hard it is to pass information across organizational boundaries.