When we think of George Washington, we think of him larger than life. After all, the capital of the United States is named after him, a whole state bears his name and countless educational and civic facilities are embossed with his identity. Certainly George Washington was a great man, but still he was just a man.

Many stories are told about this first president of the United States, including George’s statement: “Yes father, I did cut the cherry tree.” Many have honored him for his truthfulness. However, George Washington never cut the cherry tree, nor did he say those words. It was also reported that he threw a dollar across the Potomac River. But actually, George was much too cheap to throw money around. Many claim that George Washington was a great general. However, George lost more battles than he ever won. George did possess certain important skills, though. Perhaps his greatest was project management proficiency.

Like all good project managers, Washington learned from his failures. He assessed his limited resources, found they were lacking and formulated a strategy to overcome that lack. He knew the details of his army’s skills, supplies and position. He also knew the details of the opposing army’s skills, tactics, strategies, supplies and position. George Washington was a master of logistics. He would become the model for generals to follow.

George Washington was a stickler for details and made sure others understood their importance. For example, on his deathbed he told his doctor, “I am going. Have me decently buried and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.” In grief, the doctor nodded. But this was not good enough for Washington. He asked him if he understood. The doctor replied that he did. “’Tis well,” were his last words. George Washington made sure that the listener grasped his message. Good communicators make good project managers.

If George Washington had been alive in 1986 and become the project manager for that year’s attempts to modernize the Federal tax system, how would he have handled it?

The Internal Revenue Service’s Tax Systems Modernization (TSM) was an IRS initiative to retire, redesign and revamp its archaic information systems. The TSM project’s objective was to design and deploy an integrated technology architecture that would ultimately improve the way the IRS conducted business.

George would have been a strong advocate, because communication would be streamlined, disparate computer operations would be consolidated and tax collection and processing would be automated. That is, if he could ever have gotten over the fact that there was a national income tax. Since George was a reluctant writer—he had Alexander Hamilton do much of his writing—he would have appreciated the fact that new implementation would eliminate the IRS’ dependence on paper-based processes and move instead to an electronic filing system.

Unfortunately, project mismanagement, budgetary misalignment and political dissonance thwarted an ambitious attempt to bring the IRS into the modern era. The effort to update the computer systems began in 1986 and was projected to cost $4 billion and take 10 years to complete. But it proved impossible to keep a project of this magnitude on track.

So let us imagine what George Washington would have done in face of these enormous odds—similar to the odds he must have faced in waging war against the mightiest country of his day. We’ll use the CHAOS project success factors outlined by The Standish Group as a benchmark. By all accounts, the TSM project was condemned to fail. Could George have saved it?

CHAOS success factor number one is user involvement. Here, George would have had spies out to make sure that his approach would meet the objective. He was always after information about where his enemies were located, what their strengths were, what their morale was like and what supplies they had. This would have been a very big strength of George Washington. Give 17 CHAOS success points to George.

CHAOS success factor number two is executive support. It was extremely difficult to garner support for the TSM project, with 535 individual executives scrutinizing each and every project expense. The project hardly met the approval of Congress and its constituencies. Antimodernization politics also prevented the project from advancing.

In the Revolutionary War, George maintained his generalship after many battlefield failures and months of inactivity. George maintained his generalship when many members of the Continental Congress were calling for him to be replaced by General Horatio Gates. The TSM project would have been duck soup for good old George. Give all 15 possible CHAOS success points in this category to George.

CHAOS success factor number three is to hire an experienced project manager. This was George’s greatest strength. On the other hand, the IRS opted to utilize under qualified in-house staff to manage and architect an extremely complex infrastructure project. Give 14 CHAOS success points to George.

CHAOS success factor number four is to set clear business objectives. Years of revisions, recommendations and political friction convoluted the overall aims of the TSM project. George had the same problem. He vacillated so much that at times he could not act. Sorry, George. No points for you on this one.

CHAOS success factor number five is to minimize the project scope. Certainly George liked to pick his battles and would try engaging the British in smaller theaters. The TSM project was an immense, long-term program that self-perpetuated until its cancellation.

George would have broken it down into small victories. Give 12 CHAOS success points to George.

CHAOS success factor number six is to define a standard software infrastructure. This was an enormous challenge for the IRS. The IRS did make headway in aggregating data centers and computer operations onto a common platform. Unfortunately, the integration was still not robust enough to manage the increasing volumes of information. More money and more time were necessary, but never available.

Like the IRS, George tried to consolidate his armies and coordinate attacks, but until the very end this eluded him. Give George half the points in this category.

CHAOS success factor number seven is agility to meet requirements. The TSM agenda lacked a solid technical and management foundation from the outset. The IRS was unable to implement a cohesive project plan that carried the project through from conception to completion. Requirements and issues from earlier iterations were rarely addressed. Consequently, the activities were in constant flux, but the IRS was not able to adapt to the changes.

George demonstrated his agility with the Christmas Eve attack on Trenton that gave life to the revolution. Give the 6 CHAOS success points to George.

CHAOS success factor number eight is formal methodology. The TSM project truly lacked a definitive plan of attack. Deficient strategic management skills and experience, compounded by internal discord, resulted in an ineffective process.

By contrast, George believed in formal training. He brought in Frederick Steuben from Prussia as inspector general. Steuben was a genius at light infantry training. He had written his own manual, which for the most part is the manual the light infantry army uses today. Give George all the CHAOS success points in category.

CHAOS success factor number nine is to make reliable estimates—the biggest bane to the TSM project. The project’s budget was constantly scrutinized. A 1994 budget report from the General Accounting Office stated, “Through FY 1995, the IRS will have spent or obligated over $2.5 billion on its over $8 billion TSM initiative.” By 1996, the project was $4 billion over budget.

George had the same problem. Zero points for George in category.

CHAOS success factor number 10 is to hire a skilled staff. The IRS had some very talented people working on the TSM project. These people worked hard and had all good intentions.

George Washington had good people, too. But he also had some major staff problems. One of his best generals was out to take his job away from him. His friend and close advisor went over to the other side. He purposely kept Alexander Hamilton from moving up because he depended too much on him and felt he could not be replaced. George gets a goose egg in this category.

The Tax Systems Modernization project was eventually cancelled, making it a failed project of epic proportions with a total write-off of $8 billion.

George, by contrast, ends with 72.5 CHAOS success points, giving a very good chance that he could have gotten job done. It is doubtful that the 1776 bookmakers at Tower Street would have given him those odds to defeat the British Empire--which turned out to be a successful project of epic proportions.

The IRS restarted the TMS project in 1998. Congress budgets approximately $500 million on a yearly basis for the project.

James (Jim) H. Johnson is the founder and chairman of The Standish Group, which provides research advice for mission-critical IT applications. He has been in the computer industry for over 30 years. He is best known for his research on transactional middleware and on project and system failures. You can reach him at jim@standishgroup.com.