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This Just In: Media

Trade mag traces computer woes at Big Dig

By Dan Kennedy

If your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. And if you're the trade journal Software Magazine, then it might appear that the real reason for cost overruns and construction delays at the Big Dig is -- we kid you not -- poor information-technology integration.

But don't laugh. The article, in the March issue, makes a compelling case that incompatible hardware and software used by various construction companies and government agencies had a lot to do with the problems that the massive, $10-billion-plus project experienced in the early going, when cost and time estimates were being revised upward almost weekly.

And if construction has proceeded more smoothly since then, that may be no coincidence, either. In 1994 the Big Dig hired MIT professor Feniosky Peña-Mora to oversee an information-technology (IT) integration plan. Now project managers can consult a centralized database that coordinates the daily reports of 12,000 field engineers, and a master schedule that manages some 8000 activities such as design, utility relocations, and permit applications.

Software Magazine news editor Ann Harrison, who wrote the article, says she began looking into the Big Dig after coming across a study by the Standish Group, a Cape Cod-based consulting firm, showing that "most big IT projects have a really high rate of failure." As many as 30 percent of such projects are canceled before they're ever completed.

Harrison's article offers some real insight into a project that hasn't received much in the way of media scrutiny during the past few years. Even mighty 60 Minutes, in a much-ballyhooed piece last fall, dug up less dirt than a broken-down backhoe.

Two facts, though, eluded Harrison: how much the Big Dig's earlier IT failures cost, and how many years they added to the schedule. "If someone could arrive at those figures, it sure would be interesting," she says. "And that's the bone I throw to other reporters."