As part of USDA’s plan to reduce the time frame for implementing MIDAS by 80 percent,officials plan to condense the requirements analysis phase from four years to five months. Moreover, they plan to reduce the analysis and design portion of the acquisition from three and a half years to nine months.Several times over the years I was involved in requirements analysis, first for FSA and then for all the USDA agencies with offices at the county level. Sounds as if there have been 10 years of poor management since I left. (And years of poor management before then.)
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
USDA's MIDAS
GAO doesn't have a high opinion of the USDA/FSA plans for MIDAS. (Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems) Neither do I--a quote:
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4 comments:
Every time a new group comes along we go through a process, the latest being Six Sigma.
I always say I have been involved with previous processes and did you read those results.
The answer always is "we do not want to come to a predetermined answer therefore we have not looked at any previous projects yet. But we will".
I have 20 years in the Department, how many more projects will I be involved in that do not produce a true set of answers.
It is now and always has been about $$$$$. How much is Congress really willing to spend?
MIDAS has no sense of direction and has become personal ambition of some (eg Patrick Hanley). The program is lying like crazy to get funded for a pathetically wasteful program. It is just a waste of Tax payers dollar. It should really by completely nixed.
Interesting comments. Patrick Hanley was assigned by the CIO organization to provide additional oversight to the project. Reports are required to be delivered to OMB and to the Ag committee. GAO and Congressional inquires have occured on the project. A PMO office was established and the organization studies the requirements of the field office and the producer for over a year.
This is an old system that has had major issues. Producers do not know if they will be serviced or not when they come to a farm office. In addition, it takes forever to get disaster checks out the door.
Last time I checked. Russia had major issues when they did not have food. In the US, with the exception of Treasury Bills, this is our top export. The surplus of food has helped this nation greatly. The stability that these programs bring to our nation is important.
Too many H-1 employees (how did they get congress to approve it?) and HR is controlled by previous H-1 people...... what would you expect?
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