In business, when a project heads south, executives pulls the plug on it. "The private sector cuts off failures before they become failures," former Department of Homeland Security CIO Steve Cooper says in an interview. Not only would the project be stopped, but the money allotted for it could easily be applied to a new program to meet the original project's goals.

But changing the government budgeting process to mirror the way business finances IT projects is highly unlikely, and many agency heads and IT executives see merits in the current system despite the big headaches it gives them. The process is aimed at protecting taxpayers money, making sure its elected leaders in Congress decide how best to spend it. Still, that didn't stop Cooper, now the American Red Cross' CIO, to suggest what he sees as reasonable workaround to the problem: Establish a discretionary fund with strict rules in which a cabinet secretary could redirect money to a new program if a major project is failing. Listen to the podcast Convergence to hear of the response Cooper got from government leaders.