Expert urges Michigan lawmakers to cap IT contracts, require biweekly demos to curb costly failures

At a meeting of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government, Waldo Jackwith, government delivery manager for US Digital Response, told legislators that Michigan should adopt agile procurement, cap individual IT contracts at $10 million, limit contract lengths to three years, require user research for projects over $1 million and require two-week software demonstrations to reduce the risk of major project failures.

Jackwith told the panel that state custom-software projects frequently fail or deliver systems that do not meet users’ needs. He cited the Rhode Island Unified Health Infrastructure Project (UHIP) as a case study: an initial $100 million contract with Deloitte expanded to roughly $364 million, rolled out late and produced large service disruptions for residents. "When the technology fails, the legislation fails," Jackwith said, arguing that legislative intent depends on reliable technology implementation.

Why it matters: Jackwith said expensive IT failures can block policy objectives and saddle taxpayers with cost overruns. He summarized research showing poor outcomes for large, custom government software projects: according to material Jackwith cited, projects over $6 million succeed within 20% of budget, schedule and performance only about 11% of the time, and $20 million projects have roughly a 2% chance of success. He also cited federal and academic reviews that found many delivered projects met contract terms but failed to address user needs.

Jackwith described five practices he said reduce risk: (1) agile development with short delivery cycles and frequent demonstrations; (2) a single, empowered product owner employed by the government; (3) user-centered design and ongoing user research; (4) building systems as loosely coupled components with APIs so pieces can be swapped; and (5) modular contracting that breaks large efforts into smaller procurements. "Don't put more than $10,000,000 in one contract," he advised, and argued against multiyear contracts longer than three years.

He recommended executive-branch actions (require live demos every two weeks, mandate user research for projects above about $1 million, appoint a single product owner for major projects, and budget software as operating expenditures rather than capital projects). For legislative levers, he suggested that legislative staff attend biweekly "show-and-tell" demos for high-dollar projects, create boilerplate procurement language to require these practices, and authorize or encourage a state digital service housed in the executive branch to provide in-house technical review and user research. Jackwith noted several states with such digital services, including Pennsylvania, Colorado and New Jersey.

Committee members asked about professional organizations and next steps; Jackwith recommended NASCIO (National Association of State Chief Information Officers), the National Association of State Procurement Officials and the Council of State Governments, and offered to share his presentation and assist legislative staff with drafting boilerplate language. He said he had previously provided a question list and sample legislative language to help oversight staff evaluate projects.

Formal committee actions recorded during the meeting included approval of the minutes from the committee's March 13, 2025 meeting by unanimous consent after Representative Van Werkom moved to approve them, and a motion by Representative Maddock to excuse absent members, also adopted by unanimous consent.

Jackwith concluded by emphasizing that technology is not an externality to legislation: if agencies lack procurement and oversight practices that align with modern software development, legislation that depends on custom software is unlikely to succeed. He offered follow-up support and to share his slide deck with committee staff.