Hmmm, let’s see — crappy data, stored in a lot of different systems, already prone to (and full of) errors, riddled with mysterious exceptions and classifications, with nobody there to enforce design decisions and planned activities along the way, incomplete training, demonstrably flaky hardware — and, apparently, no parallel testing of the old system with the new.
Mix in infamously complex software, high-powered consulting firms, and a massive bureaucracy (oh, and a few unions, too), and you have tons o’ fun for everyone.
Still, consultants hired to implement the system urged the district to proceed as scheduled in early January 2007. Three days before the system was to begin, they urged the district in a report to “Go! Proceed . . . and go-live on January 1!”
Go live they did, plunging the district into a crisis from which it is only now emerging. Over the course of last year, taxpayers overpaid an estimated $53 million to some 36,000 teachers and others, while thousands more went underpaid or not paid at all for months.
A review of documents and interviews with current and former officials about the yearlong crisis shed light on fundamental problems that plagued the district and prevented it from solving the fiasco faster. Dysfunctional management and internal power struggles allowed the project to go forward with no one fully in charge and hampered the district’s ability to mount an effective response when serious problems arose. Years of shoddy record-keeping and strangely complex union contracts made answering basic questions — including how much people should be paid and what jobs they worked — almost impossible.
The LA Unified School District payroll debacle will be the subject of “How not to run a software project” white papers for decades.