The Whoops! Files - 'ZIFFPAGE TITLE Power Project Short' (
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Power Project Short-Circuits The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which supplies electricity in the northwest United States, has sunk $25 million into a software project to automate part of its energy-transmission system-and to finish the job, the Portland, Ore.-based agency may eventually spend nearly three times the amount it originally expected.
One of its major mistakes: The BPA's sales-and-marketing department was initially in charge of the software deployment, and the project team didn't adequately define the system's requirements.
"Project management personnel did not have sufficient information technology management or experience," the U.S. Department of Energy said in a February 2003 audit report. A BPA spokesman says the agency has since transferred responsibility for the project, which is now four years behind schedule, to an "experienced information-technology manager" and expects it to be completed in early 2005.
—Additional reporting by Sean Gallagher and Todd Spangler
Intelligence 
