Lessons Learned in Building Drug Rehab Websites
Here we are in week 3 of the Obamacare disastrous website launch. This is a text book case of how “not to launch a new website.” This project whether big or small is the worst case scenario that could happen. Big media launch, website does not function, users cannot register, callers cannot get to customer service and it is basically a DOA project at this point. Is it time to change horses? Maybe, if I were Obama I would call Mitt Romney to come in and save the day since he is a capable manager. But, there is a lot more going on here than than the website not working, the answers from the HHS Secretary, CNN Reporter Sanjay Gupta is getting here are a pile of horsefeathers. Reading between the line here this project will die.
A Flawed Business Model
The bigger problem is that the government’s business model could be flawed. Flawed because in theory it is a good idea but in practice there are way to many interests all grabbing at the American Healthcare pie and there is only so much to go around. It must be profitable for the insurers or they will not participate. It must be cost effective for the consumers if they are going to participate.
This whole project stinks of incompetence, poor planning, zero testing, corruption and poor execution just so the government can shove their agenda up the people’s ass! (Sorry I used a bad word but that is really what is happening here). Other than killing people, and spending fiat monies I’m not sure there is one single thing that the government is doing well. The war on drugs is a complete failure, No Child Left Behind has basically dumb-ed us down even further at a faster rate and these guys think they can execute on a healthcare program for all?
So the quick and easy steps in order to building a drug rehab website are the following:
1) Do research – Website and Competitive Audit
2) Write Execution Strategy and Functionality for Phase I
3) Get Strategy and Budget Approved
4) Complete Project Plan and Assign Tasks
5) Agree on Milestones
6) Implement in Staging Environment
7) Test in Staging Environment
8) Roll Out in a Phased Approach (If the project is as big as Obamacare)
I personally worked on a huge global web project back in the mid 1990’s and we had a surge of traffic and someone went up to Lou Gerstner CEO at IBM at the time and said to him “Lou, you have a huge opportunity and a huge problem on your hands, DO SOMETHING! He did DO SOMETHING and gave his team the marching orders and budget to execute without micromanaging. His orders worked and we solved the problem in 24 hours however we had an advantage, an experienced tight knit team of MIT & IBM technologists.
So in the Obamacare case this is NOT a traffic surge issue, this is a technology, functionality and business model issue. It might just be time for the government to get out of the business of healthcare insurance and regulation all together.
