[kictanet] Lessons from the failing RTS

Thu Mar 7 16:04:56 EAT 2013

Hey Brian, Gilda, Listers,

As many have observed, there must have been a serious planning lapse or a
last minute change of requirements with respect to acquisition of the
Results Transmission System (RTS) component - the EVID issues aside.

Drawing from experience in a Government ICT function, by the time the
Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued late December 2012, the election
being only two and a half months away, IEBC must have been in panic mode.
In such cases the escape route is usually to ask the funding partner to use
their less rigorous procedures to procure for you. So apparently IFES had
to bear the risk of conducting a rushed procurement worsened by tight
timelines for implementation and testing.

What's interesting though is; in government, departments do not merely
decide to procure goods or services. Such items-must be in an annual work
plan and the procurement plan by July (start of fiscal year). What would be
useful to learn from Dismas and his team is - by July 2012,  what did they
have in their 2012/2013 annual plans for providing the RTS service. I do
not believe they deliberately waited to have an RFP issued on December 21st
with a 14 calendar day submission deadline in the middle of the festive
period; and for a service required exactly 2 months after RFP submission..

I look forward to seeing some of the enormous lessons that will be
presented to the Kenya ICT fraternity by this seemingly unfortunate
scenario. Perhaps this will be an excellent Case Study for our
Universities' MSc and BSc programs.

Best Regards

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>wrote:

> Gilda,
>
> As facts begin to emerge, it seems that the IEBC ICT team were part of the
> problem. It is therefore likely that in the age old practice of covering
> their behinds, they would obfsucate the problems, even to top management in
> order to buy themselves time to firefight and hopefully fix things before
> they got out of hand. This time, unfortunately, the bluff didn't work, and
> with the whole country watching the only sensible thing management could do
> is put the system aside and stick to manual tally, which is what we have
> now.
>
> As I have said earlier - we will need to know what happened, and we will
> need to see those responsible dealt with.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Brian
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Gilda Odera <godera at skyweb.co.ke> wrote:
>
>> Listers,
>>
>> I beg to differ here. It is about time we became perfectionists and
>> stopped making excuses for our failure to ensure that the system was FULLY
>> functional before the actual election took place. It is true that systems
>> fail but in this case, it never really worked properly RIGHT FROM THE
>> ONSET. If we keep adopting this attitude that 'systems fail' how will the
>> processes and efficiencies ever be improved? It is wise to accept our
>> weaknesses so we can improve on them. The moment the writing was on the
>> wall, IEBC ICT Team should have advised of the risk of proceeding with the
>> failing system in order for them to simply announce that they would have to
>> run the elections on a dully manual system-expectations must always be
>> managed, especially knowing how crucial these particular elections are for
>> every party. Why is it that we don't normally read that systems failed
>> during elections in all other countries. Probably because they fully
>> prepare and have back up systems that work I event one fails!
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gilda Odera
>>
>> On Mar 6, 2013, at 9:52 AM, Erik Hersman <erik at zungu.com> wrote:
>>
>> Agreed with Evans here.
>>
>> Every single tech system has problems, that IEBC does as well should be
>> no surprise.  I've been spending last night and this morning trying to
>> better understand how the IEBC's data flow works, their lack of clarity
>> here is the only problem that I can find.  You can see my questions,
>> sources and even the IEBC RFP for the system here:
>> http://iebctechkenya.tumblr.com/
>>
>> Polling station uses Safaricom SIM cards »
>> App installed in phone, proprietary software from IFES »
>> Transmitted via Safaricom’s VPN »
>> Servers hosted/managed by Next  Technologies (needs confirmation) »
>> Google hosted website at http://vote.iebc.or.ke »
>> Google hosted API at http://api.iebc.or.ke
>>
>> You'll note that, besides the IEBC itself, there are at least 4 (large)
>> organizations that have to be in sync in order for the system to work
>> (Safaricom, IFES, Next Technologies, and Google).  That's no small task,
>> and as you can see by the list of companies involved, these are largely *
>> not* local companies.
>>
>>
>> Erik Hersman
>>
>> www.ushahidi.com | www.iHub.co.ke <http://www.ihub.co.ke/>
>> www.whiteafrican.com <http://www.afrigadget.com/> | @whiteafrican<http://twitter.com/whiteafrican>
>>
>> On Mar 6, 2013, at 9:42 AM, Evans Ikua <ikua.evans at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Edith, I beg to differ. Its not ICT that has failed here. Its the
>> processes. Just throwing some expensive servers and plenty of bandwidth at
>> a problem will not solve it. The top leadership has to fully understand
>> their organization's ICT strategy. They have to internalize the
>> opportunities that technology brings to the table, as well as the inherent
>> risks that come with it. This cannot be left to techies, however good they
>> may be. The reason being that if the organization that you lead fails (and
>> the reason was technology), its you who is answerable, not the techies.
>> This is the spirit of IT Governance.
>>
>> It would be interesting to know if the IEBC commissioners fully
>> understand the risks of the technologies that they are relying on.
>> Let us not blame the technology.
>>
>> Evans
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Edith Adera <eadera at idrc.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Listers,
>>>
>>> It is a shame that for the first time in Kenya's history when IT is
>>> given a chance to bring credibility and efficiency in the electoral
>>> process, ICT has failed SPECTACULARLY!
>>>
>>> what went wrong?
>>>
>>> Edith
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> kictanet mailing list
>>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>>>
>>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
>>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ikua.evans%40gmail.com
>>>
>>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>>>
>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> *----------------------------------------------------
>> Kind Regards,
>> Evans Ikua,*
>> lanetconsulting.com,
>> lpi-eastafrica.org,
>> ict-innovation.fossfa.net,
>> Skype: @ikuae
>> Cell: +254-722-955831
>> _______________________________________________
>> kictanet mailing list
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>>
>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/erik%40zungu.com
>>
>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>>
>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>
>>
>> _________________
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gilda Odera
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gilda Odera
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> kictanet mailing list
>> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>>
>> Unsubscribe or change your options at
>> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/blongwe%40gmail.com
>>
>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
>> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>>
>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
>> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
>> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
>> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kictanet mailing list
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
>
> Unsubscribe or change your options at
> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jkieti%40gmail.com
>
> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>

-- 
My Blog - www.gmeltdown.com
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The ordinary just won't do
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20130307/42b6d040/attachment.htm>