Analyzing the Failure of the FBI's Virtual Case File (VCF)

This case study analyzes the failure of the FBI's Virtual Case File (VCF), which was abandoned after only five years of operation. The analysis identifies several key factors contributing to the VCF's failure, including a lack of effective information technology management, insufficient technical expertise among employees, the FBI's cultural practices of information hoarding, poor and slowly evolving system designs, and inadequate project management and leadership. The study explores the relationship between these factors and the information system elements, such as customers (FBI officers and informants), the product (VCF software), business processes, and communication technology. The failure is attributed to incompatibility between the VCF's requirements and the existing technological infrastructure, lack of skilled employees, and poor communication practices. The provided references offer additional insights into the VCF's history and the challenges faced during its implementation.

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VIRTUAL CASE FILE ANALYSIS
As mentioned before, the Virtual Case File (VCF) was abandoned in the year 2005 after
functioning for only 5 years. The FBI organization thought that software would be one of the
best software that would ever exist but it came to prove everybody wrong after lasting for a very
short while. This analysis will discuss the reasons as to why the VCF failed.
Lack of Information Technology Management
Information technology management is basically the process of organizing, distributing,
controlling and directing all resources related to information technology. This is whereby a
business takes control of all resources related to IT and directs them towards its needs, objectives
and goals. Some of the resources include: software systems, data, employees, customers,
networking hardware and computer. In the case of VCF, the FBI failed to manage their
information technology effectively(Alfonsi, 2005). The organization did not have any updated or
modernized software systems, networking hardware and electronic materials that were suitable
for the VCF characteristics. In addition to that, its software development procedures and
requirements were slow and adamant. Therefore, the organization did not have enough time to
restructure their technological infrastructure to fit that of VCF. Because of this, the
organization’s information technology systems and features were not compatible with those of
the VCF which led to failure of the VCF.
Lack of Technical Expertise
For a business to succeed, it must have qualified, experienced and enough employees. The FBI
had neither enough nor qualified or experienced employees to work with the VCF. Even after the
introduction of the VCF, the organization failed to train its employees to prepare them for VCF.
Instead, it continued to work with its then employees who had little knowledge about the
software’s application. Additionally, the organization did not increase its employees even with
the addition of a different software which led to the increase in responsibility. Due to this, the
VCF failed since there were no enough nor skilled employees to work on it.

FBI’s Cultural Practices
Apparently, it is cultural for the FBI employees and officers to keep information to themselves.
This means that they do not share information as easily as in any other organization, unless one
has the required credentials and security levels. This kind of culture affected the VCF because
the users could not share information with each other as they should. In that case, the employees
decided to keep valuable information to themselves rather than sabotage the organizations’
operations. This led to the undermining of the VCF and its purpose.
Poor and Slowly Evolving System Designs Requirements
When Depew decided to build the VCF, the designed were not very professional or modernized.
According to Marchewka2010, the features, designs and the requirements of the software were
provided by just one party who had little information about the FBI’s capability, needs, objective
and goals. Therefore, this led to him coming with overly poor design and slowly evolving one. In
other words, they were not flexible to any changes and if they changed, the cost was immensely
high.
Poor Project Management and Leadership
The building of the VCF project was run and managed by very few and inexperienced leaders
from the Bureau(Marchewka, 2010). The managers did not have any enough skills and
knowledge concerning the software itself and therefore did not come up with valuable and
reliable ideas during the building. This led its failure because it could not achieve its expected
objectives. Furthermore, the software was accompanied by different problems relating to its
functionality which led to its failure.
RELATION OF THE ANALYSIS TO INFORMATION SYSTEM ELEMENTS
Customers- the VCF customers are the FBI officers, employees and informants. The fact that
they were not given a chance to be trained so that they would be comfortable, skilled and
qualified to work with the software increased the chances of its failure. If the customers have no
knowledge of a certain product, then the product is likely going to fail in achieving its objective.

Product- the VCF was not effectively or efficiently designed and therefore caused a number of
problems. This was basically because of the poor designs and requirements that led to its
development.
Business process- the FBI’s business operations were often overly ambitious schedules. This
brought a lot of strain for the software since it would not manage all the operations and
processes. Being overloaded and overworked led to its failure.
Communication technology- The state of communication technology was not very reliable in the
organization. The computers, organizational software systems and other electronic
communication materials were not very modernized or developed when the VCF was introduced.
Therefore, this led to the software’s failure because the organizational technology was not
compatible with that of VCF.

REFERENCES
Marchewka, J.T., 2010. The FBI virtual case file: A case study. Communications of the
IIMA, 10(2), p.1.
Alfonsi, B., 2005. FBI's virtual case file living in limbo. IEEE Security & Privacy, 3(2), p.7.