1. ITEC 370 Lecture 26 Case study

2. Review Questions? F give update on project (demo optional) Life cycles –eXtreme programming

3. Case study Objectives Look at how a piece of software could have had a huge impact in history and how it failed… –Popular vote = 50% Obama, 48% Romney –2004 elections had 126 million voters –In other words only 2.5 million more votes –Not much considering population is 311.5 million

4. Case study Systems Narwhal –Obama’s Orca –Romney’s (named because Orca is Narwhal’s only predator)

5. Case study Question What role does technology play in a presidential election? What are the benefits? What are the downsides?

6. Case study Orca Mitt Romney’s management tool Who voted and where Decision management software –Where should last minute spam-a-phone efforts be directed? –X number of volunteers –Should you focus in a state that is all democrat, or one that you have a chance in winning? –What about specific counties / cities?

7. Case study More info 34,000 volunteers working on election day to record data 800 people collecting / managing data Goal = Best exit polling in the world –How many voted (listen to each person when they register) –What is the racial makeup of voters –If possible who voted for who –Wanted to be able to handle millions of votes in one day

8. Case study Software What it looked like

9. Case study Usability On a scale of 1-10 how easy to use would you rate this app (w/ 1 being not and 10 being it’s so easy) How long would it take to teach someone to use it? How easy would it be to get help?

10. Case study Problem #1 "The primary issue was we beta-tested in a different environment than the Garden [Boston Garden, where the 800 campaign staffers were working]. There was so much data coming in -- 1200 records or more per minute -- it shut down the system for a time. Users were frustrated by lag, and some people dropped off and we experienced attrition as a result.” – Zac Moffat

11. Case study More Problems Wrong passwords all over the place –Reset tool didn’t work System went down for hours Some regions could not login Was stress tested using automation (internal network) Single web server handling input…

12. Case study End result 30,000 of the most motivated Romney supporters couldn’t do anything Frustration++ Flying blind Let things run their course

13. Case study Failures Where do you think the process failed –Requirements –Design –Implementation –Testing –Didn’t even get to maintenance…

14. Case study Narwhal Obama’s system Combination of multiple information sources –Age,sex,race, voting record, location –Social networks –Consumer data sources –Field workers Allowed Obama to customize his robo-call / volunteers messages

15. Case study Micro- targeting Detailed maps of each area, who was a staunch republican / democrat Undecided or independent voters Goal = Spend time on people who matter People that have experienced X event –Just so you know I created / approved legislation that helps you…

16. Case study Which method? What approach do you think is better? What are the advantages / disadvantages of each approach?

17. Case study Issues Obama had 4+ years to build his system Romney had ~6 months due to primaries –Republicans not united and it showed

18. Case study Review Orca vs Narwhal What should / should not be done when developing software