ITEC 370

Lecture 26Case study

Case study

Review

• Questions?• F give update on project (demo

optional)• Life cycles– eXtreme programming

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

Case study

Systems

• Narwhal– Obama’s

• Orca– Romney’s (named because Orca is

Narwhal’s only predator)

Case study

Question

• What role does technology play in a presidential election?

• What are the benefits?• What are the downsides?

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?

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

Case study

Software

• What it looked like

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?

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

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…

Case study

End result

• 30,000 of the most motivated Romney supporters couldn’t do anything

• Frustration++• Flying blind• Let things run their course

Case study

Failures

• Where do you think the process failed– Requirements– Design– Implementation– Testing– Didn’t even get to maintenance…

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

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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…

Case study

Which method?

• What approach do you think is better?

• What are the advantages / disadvantages of each approach?

Case study

Issues

• Obama had 4+ years to build his system

• Romney had ~6 months due to primaries– Republicans not united and it showed

Case study

Review

• Orca vs Narwhal• What should / should not be done

when developing software