The Internal Revenue Service Business Modernization Project undertaken by the Tax Agency of the US Government has been singled out as an example of a massive failure. As envisioned, the project was intended as an Enterprise-wide intervention that would provide modern services and effective data access to citizenry and several government agencies. After more than a decade and 3 billion dollars later, the results appear to be less than exemplary. Sandeep Purao and I have a paper accepted for presentation at the Enterprise Architecture Research (TEAR2010) Workshop that identifies different stakeholders who participated in the project, and analyzes the sentiments and confidence each expressed regarding the fate of the project. We conclude with lessons learned from our investigation including recognizing the importance of multiple stakeholders for Enterprise-wide initiatives.

Purao, S., and Desouza, K.C. “An Enterprise-wide Intervention at IRS: A Longitudinal Analysis of Stakeholder Sentiments,” In Proceedings of the 5th Trends in Enterprise Architecture Research (TEAR2010) Workshop,  Delft, Netherlands (November 12, 2010).

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