Government tech projects fail by default. It doesn’t have to be this way. | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

This is the first series in the Perspectives on Public Purpose blog.

During the early months of the pandemic, unemployment insurance systems across the country buckled under the weight of the rush of applicants , bringing tech failures to light in the most critical moment of many peoples’ lives. Of course, government tech failures are not new. There’s a report from the Standish Group that shows that government tech projects over $6M only succeed 13% of the time. Examples of failing government tech projects are common knowledge and regularly make headlines, such as the famous Healthcare.gov incident, or the Hawaii missile alert system , or even the very recent U

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