A story out of California this week shows how project costs need careful management.  An effort to create a centralized computer system for California’s state courts, originally conceived as a modest upgrade in a few counties, now faces total costs approaching $2 billion and is years away from large-scale implementation, [1] an investigation by The Sacramento Bee has found.

The project has ballooned in scope and costs since its 2001 inception without the scrutiny other state computer systems face because the state Administrative Office of the Courts is not bound by the same project review requirements.  Amid California’s budget crunch, which has closed state courts one day a month, the computer project jumped into the spotlight. A state Assembly committee will hold a hearing this week to review overall spending growth at the courts’ administrative office. The governor’s technology watchdog also is evaluating the computer project.