Requirements Management: Kaiser Permanente's Rx for Better Projects - ' Kaiser Permanente Base Case '
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Kaiser Permanente Base Case
Headquarters: 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: (510) 271-5910
Business: Health maintenance organization providing medical plans and comprehensive medical services.
Vice President of Applications Delivery: Kelly Cannon
Financials in 2005: $31.1 billion revenue; $1 billion profit.
Challenge: Improve and standardize the software requirements development process.
BASELINE GOALS:
Expand KP HealthConnect from an internal network used by 12,000 physicians, to allow 8.5 million members to obtain patient records, make appointments and check lab results online.
Build 7 new hospitals, in addition to 30 now in service, by 2012.
Expand 19 existing hospitals to accommodate growth, including 13 under the company's seismic replacement program, as part of a $20 billion construction campaign.
THE PRICE OF POOR PRACTICES
70% TO 85% OF ALL PROJECT REWORK COSTS are due to errors in requirements, says a 1997 article in American Programmer.
30% TO 50% OF THE TOTAL EFFORT EXPENDED on a software project comes from rework, according to an estimate by Borland Software.
ALMOST 50% OF DEFECTS IN SOFTWARE PROJECTS can be traced to errors in requirements, Borland says.
71% OF FAILED SOFTWARE PROJECTS suffer from poor requirements management, according to a paper presented at the 1999 Applications of Software Measurement Conference.
Projects: Integration 
