“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
Perhaps you saw the news headlines in late July that the Social Security Administration has spent close to $300 million to procure a system known as the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS). According to a letter to the SSA from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “The DCPS project was intended to improve case processing quality, enhance customer service, and reduce administrative costs among SSA and state disability determination services.” But unfortunately the letter goes on to say, “While the Committee supports modernizing antiquated technology, the DCPS project is costly and years behind schedule.” Because of problems with the procurement, McKinsey & Company was hired to investigate. Their report notes “the project has permanently been in `beta,’ meaning a pre-release version.” Indeed. According to the McKinsey report, now available in redacted form on the House Committee’s website, “For [the] past 5 years, Release 1.0 [is] consistently projected to be 24-32 months away.” The House letter and the redacted report never mention who the prime vendor on the procurement is, but it is easy to ascertain. Recalling my commentary in the previous issue of the ISR Connector noting some failures of a CMMI Level 5 organization at the heart of the healthcare.gov fiasco, you might think you know where this SSA story is going to end up. Well, not exactly. While the parent organization advertises in a slide deck from 2012 that it is “CMMI Level 5,” a closer study reveals that the sub-group within that parent organization that has been doing the work was assessed at level 3 in 2013.
In the parlance of the University of California system, the Institute for Software Research is an “Organized Research Unit,” or ORU. All ORUs are reviewed at five-year intervals by the University to determine if they are still performing top-tier research and providing important services to the University and to the community at large. ISR’s most recent review began last summer, with our preparation of a large summary-of-progress report, followed by scrutiny by anonymous reviewers external to the university, followed by still-further review by a committee within the university. After all that work (whew!) I am happy to report that we were renewed for another five years! 
Early in June I had the privilege of giving a talk at the Boeing site in Huntington Beach, as part of their Distinguished Researcher and Scholar Seminar series. I always appreciate the opportunity of speaking at industry events, for it gives me an occasion to learn more about the challenges and issues facing high-tech companies and consequently hone the direction of my research. In trying to decide what my seminar would be about, I decided to leverage a surprise I’d had earlier in the year. In February I needed to be away from campus, and hence my classes, due to some conference-related travel. For my graduate class on software architecture, I decided to ask Dr.