3 ms·

An interesting thing to note that is that Australia selected IBM to run the digital Census (which, surprise, failed horribly) whilst one of their states, Queens

by Smerity 10y ago

An interesting thing to note that is that Australia selected IBM to run the digital Census (which, surprise, failed horribly) whilst one of their states, Queensland, has an explicit IBM ban due to an ongoing $1.2 billion dollar contract debacle[1]. As an Australian, I hope we can move far away from such contractors. The amount of waste is insane. It reminds me strongly of the initial Healthcare.gov contracting failures. [1]: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/queenslands-ibm-ban-lives-on-420969 http://www.itnews.com.au/news/queenslands-ibm-ban-lives-on-4...

ethbro 10y ago
I think the Healthcare.gov comparison is interesting, because to my knowledge it's the exact opposite situation. On Healthcare.gov, there was no primary contractor who had authority to manage the other contractors building various pieces. Solution: hire an IBM. On the Australian census in the article, it seems like they only contracted IBM to both manage and build the project. My takeaway is that you can get a decent result in large software projects, but (1) hire a party whose sole role it is to manage / conduct ongoing audits of work, (2) set the contract such that the managing party has a mildly adversarial relationship with the implementing parties, & (3) cover off cost overruns in the initial contract.
- Smerity 10y ago
  I may be wrong but from what I read the solution for Healthcare.gov didn't involve a primary contractor, it involved changing policies to reflect start-ups[1]. The Healthcare.gov debacle and resulting "start-up culture" resulted in the US Digital Service, which terms themselves as "a startup at the White House". http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-se...

by Smerity 10y ago

ethbro 10y ago

I think the Healthcare.gov comparison is interesting, because to my knowledge it's the exact opposite situation. On Healthcare.gov, there was no primary contractor who had authority to manage the other contractors building various pieces. Solution: hire an IBM. On the Australian census in the article, it seems like they only contracted IBM to both manage and build the project. My takeaway is that you can get a decent result in large software projects, but (1) hire a party whose sole role it is to manage / conduct ongoing audits of work, (2) set the contract such that the managing party has a mildly adversarial relationship with the implementing parties, & (3) cover off cost overruns in the initial contract.

Smerity 10y ago
I may be wrong but from what I read the solution for Healthcare.gov didn't involve a primary contractor, it involved changing policies to reflect start-ups[1]. The Healthcare.gov debacle and resulting "start-up culture" resulted in the US Digital Service, which terms themselves as "a startup at the White House". http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-se...