It seems that perhaps
the laissez-faire attitude toward corporate IT training may finally be coming
home to roost.
In the recent 2018
Primary elections in Arizona there was a serious issue with the deployment of
voting technology in Maricopa County. As many as 62 voting sites were
affected with estimates of over 100,000 voters being inconvenienced or worse.
For the project, Tempe's
Insight (A large IT products and services company) was chosen as
the primary contractor. After looking over this article and
supporting sources it seems fairly clear to me what went wrong.
In short....
Inadequate training, bad
management and an over-reliance on outsourcing led to a debacle that will
likely end in the courts when all is said and done.
The passage below from the cited article states what I believe to be the crux of the issue. It relates what a contracted tech experienced during the deployment.
"... training of
subcontractors mirrored Insight's "regular" employee training
consisting of watching a 15 minute video and a multi-page instruction sheet
that was to be printed out. In addition technicians were required to
view another video on the use of Insight's SmartPhone APP which was
clearly identified as being in BETA. In other words, not in final
WORKING form. This "APP" was to be the "preferred"
means of communicating and managing assigned jobs.
At no point in this
process was any other training provided to the subcontractors meaning
technicians unfamiliar with both the equipment and Maricopa County election
procedure were expected to somehow "magically" set up a site without
ever having touched the equipment they were responsible for. The backup
plan, that same printed instructional document and vague references to a
support hierarchy which as we now know was insufficient."
It's fairly obvious in this all too familiar accounting of the technician's experience that training was woefully inadequate to the task at hand. Not to mention support and communication channels.
I've seen this movie so often over the
past few decades that I won't even pretend to be surprised.
It takes me back to the
days of the "paper certified" IT professional whose training was
limited ( by design ) to little more than was necessary to pass the
certification exam. Leading to individuals ill prepared for the
challenges they'd face outside of the ideal scenario.
Yes, education is a
personal responsibility but when your business model depends on having people
ready for what you're going to throw at them you don't leave it to chance.
Or a training
video... IBM started doing that in the 90's and guess what, they don't sell
computers any more.
If it's that important
you'd better be sure everyone's on the same page. Unless what Maricopa
County saw on Election day is your idea of success.
I'll be honest, my
personal opinion of Insight has never been very high. They evolved from
the same swamp that birthed 1000 other flaky computer part vendors back in the
80's. By the time they became "legitimate" and changed their
name to Insight I was just beginning my professional IT career and
already wary of them.
My every brush since has been an experience in either frustration, arrogance or incompetence. Sometimes all 3 at once.
My every brush since has been an experience in either frustration, arrogance or incompetence. Sometimes all 3 at once.
But then, what can you expect from a business founded on the principles of undercutting the competition at all costs.
Google Hard Drives International if you want a history lesson on the company's roots. Not exactly shining.
In any case it appears
to me that Insight was once again more interested in profit than doing
the job right. Their defense? "We're not responsible."
Look suited morons...
You don't send a tech to
something as important as a polling place armed only with inadequate training
from a 15 minute video and flaky smartphone app.
Add to it
inconsistencies in the command hierarchy, failed communication channels and
scheduling chaos and you get the mess we see here.
All the tenets of a
company that puts no value in training, planning or project management.
Worry about nothing but the bottom line and you get bottom of the barrel.
Insight, don't expect quality if you aren't willing to invest in what it takes to get the job done and that ISN'T a 15 minute video and abandonment of your field techs.
What it IS, is investing in adequate training that includes hands on labs and a firm grasp of the escalation tree (among other things) long BEFORE election day.
