Census Breakdown: The Full Story
By now I hope you've had a chance to see the story, broken by our sister site Nextgov.com yesterday, on the Census Bureau's decision to dramatically scale back its plans to use handheld computers to conduct the 2010 census. That was followed by a report on the grilling Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez took at the hands of a House Appropriations subcommittee about the move.
In case you didn't see this coming, I would point you to some of the work that Allan Holmes and the members of the team he has assembled at Nextgov have done on this issue over the past several months.
Allan got the ball rolling last summer with a "On the Brink," a piece in Government Executive that noted that the Census Bureau's leap of faith with handhelds "sends shivers down the spines of risk management experts."
Since then he, Gautham Nagesh and Jill Aitoro have followed up with a series of stories leading up to yesterday's blockbuster:
- GAO cites cost, schedule risks in IT projects supporting census (Oct. 10, 2007)
- GAO: Delays in systems testing put 2010 census at risk (Dec. 12, 2007)
- Census program to use handheld computers said to be in 'serious trouble' (Jan. 2, 2008)
- Census Bureau facing huge cost increase, possible delays in 2010 effort (March 5, 2008)