With the echoes of Edward Snowden still haunting D.C., I am somewhat surprised that contractors were used for such a high profile project. But that's government for ya!
Anyone who has worked on a software or website development project should not be surprised by this continuing news story.
So what went wrong? It can be broken into three categories: Change of Scope, Timelines, and Testing.
Change of Scope: Like almost any development project, initial requirements failed to outline every detail. When new players get involved, this also opens up the possibility of "arm-chair developers" who throw in their opinions late in the game and may even force some changes. Right or wrong, this creates a nightmare scenarios for the actual developers that have to accommodate these changes to scope. Reports from the contractors say that many last minute changes to the workflow of the site caused a bottleneck of traffic and they did not have time to properly test the changes.
Timelines: This is probably the biggest cause of problems for the Obamacare website. Timelines for launch were set way back when a line in the sand was drawn for penalizing American's that did not have coverage. Now work backwards. There was about 5 months from site launch to penalty deadline. Open enrollment takes time and the site needed to be up early enough for citizens to be able to comply. So the site HAD to go live. . . or did it.
The reasons for firm deadlines are purely political. Obama didn't want to give the GOP any more reasons to attack Obamacare. The Obama Administration could have recognize that they only get one chance to launch the site and do it right. They could have delayed the launch and made their case for how critical the site was to providing health care for all Americans. Now they will be delaying the deadline for non-compliance penalties and the website launch has been a disaster.
Testing: "Ok, everyone in the office login at the same time. No smoke? Ok, launch it."
That's about the extent of the pressure testing done on the site prior to launch. Insufficient and naive. For an administration that felt so strongly about the need for health care that they prioritized it over the economy, it is surprising that they failed to anticipate the demand. Google "how to test your website for millions of visitors". There are solutions for this and cloud storage and scalable virtual servers can handle massive traffic spikes. If any IT professional built a $400 million website that couldn't handle that level of traffic, they would be fired.
Whose responsibility is load testing? Depends on how the contract was written. Either way, the administration didnt make it a priority and any testing that was done failed to simulated real user experiences.
Now that the contractor CGI federal is speaking out to defend their work, they are making it clear that "the problems can be fixed". http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/24/crash-and-burn-lawmakers-grill-obamacare-website-contractors/
And they will send the "A Team"...for a price. Surely the costs will continue to rise beyond $400 million.
The failed launch came down to 3 things: changes in scope, unrealistic timelines, an a lack of testing. So what can an uninsured American do?
In the meantime, there are alternatives to healthcare.gov.
List of alternatives to healthcare.gov
1. State-run exchanges: Depending on where you live, you won't use HealthCare.gov at all. These states are running their own exchanges: California, Connecticut,Colorado, the District of Columbia,Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland,Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada,New York, Oregon, Rhode Island,Vermont and Washington state. Don't be fooled by websites masquerading as insurance exchanges, though.
2. Paper applications and the telephone: download and mail it in. Hotline operators at (800) 318-2596 can help explain how to fill out the form and can even take applications over the phone.
And 5 more alternatives over on HuffPo.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4109749
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