It/205 Week 8 Checkpoint
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- Date Submitted: 12/18/2012 10:53 PM
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U.S. Census Bureau Field Data Collection Project: Don't Count On It
The Field Data Collection Automation, also known as the FDCA is of extreme importance to U.S. Census Bureau. The FDCA was meant to replace the paper copies and maps that the workers from the U.S. Census Bureau were taking door to door to collect the household data. The replacement was to be a handheld electronic device that recorded the data making it a breeze to collect information on each household. This new device would lower costs, improve the quality of information, and to be more thorough. The biggest thing for the workers is that it would save them so much time, making it easy to get the results out sooner. The FDCA would impact decision making by leading the decision maker down the right or wrong path. It would make it easier, if it worked, for the decision maker to find the mistakes and the good points too. It would impact operational activities by making it faster going door to door and simpler for the Census Bureau instead of being on paper. The problem that the Bureau has is classified as a mixture of technology, people, and organization factors. To describe a few would include how the handheld devices are too slow and are not consistently reporting data, the program had an accountability issue, no certified program managers or highly qualified executives, poor testing procedures, the bureau did not give the specific requirements, the device technology would fail while transmitting data to the central data processing center, shortage of a risk management process, ineffective management oversight and the lack of experience for this magnitude of a project from Harris. It seems that every person was at fault in this project. The biggest problem was that the performance problems with the devices were reported to project management but was not recognized as a risk going forward. None of the problems were documented. The application that was to display and record the performance of the...
The Field Data Collection Automation, also known as the FDCA is of extreme importance to U.S. Census Bureau. The FDCA was meant to replace the paper copies and maps that the workers from the U.S. Census Bureau were taking door to door to collect the household data. The replacement was to be a handheld electronic device that recorded the data making it a breeze to collect information on each household. This new device would lower costs, improve the quality of information, and to be more thorough. The biggest thing for the workers is that it would save them so much time, making it easy to get the results out sooner. The FDCA would impact decision making by leading the decision maker down the right or wrong path. It would make it easier, if it worked, for the decision maker to find the mistakes and the good points too. It would impact operational activities by making it faster going door to door and simpler for the Census Bureau instead of being on paper. The problem that the Bureau has is classified as a mixture of technology, people, and organization factors. To describe a few would include how the handheld devices are too slow and are not consistently reporting data, the program had an accountability issue, no certified program managers or highly qualified executives, poor testing procedures, the bureau did not give the specific requirements, the device technology would fail while transmitting data to the central data processing center, shortage of a risk management process, ineffective management oversight and the lack of experience for this magnitude of a project from Harris. It seems that every person was at fault in this project. The biggest problem was that the performance problems with the devices were reported to project management but was not recognized as a risk going forward. None of the problems were documented. The application that was to display and record the performance of the...