The legislature is holding an oversight hearing today on the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) and focusing in on their disastrous technology project called BreEZe.  I will start screaming if one more witness cites “lessons learned” or “best practices” as the solution to poor public sector management.

I was hired in 1982 by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to work on their automation project and the latest phase of that effort (IT Modernization Project) was cited in the latest State Auditor’s report as an example of the state’s failure to take timely and meaningful action to address problems (report can be found at http://www.auditor.ca.gov)

In 1996 I worked on the DMV’s Business Process Reengineering (BPR) effort and every vendor/consultant we worked with required activities identified under the title of Change Management.  The Director of DCA just admitted this morning they failed to incorporate change management into their project but they will going forward – if they continue.

So much for learning lessons!