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How does this happen? Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to outsource the development of this critical system to a foreign contractor? Did anyb

How does this happen? Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to outsource the development of this critical system to a foreign contractor? Did anybody stop and think about what might happen to all of that public money if the contract is breached?

mrep 9y ago
Happens all the time. Worst example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
Spooky23 9y ago
You can can tell from the auditors report that the RFP or other solicitation was fubar. Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. It also sounds like the project was getting done on the cheap. The actual dollar figure is buried a bit... it sounds like they got their hands on a big wad of cash and went on a spending spree. I bet they bought a new mainframe, lots of of network crap, etc. The poor procurement practices led to the state ending up with some two-bit bodyshop that just tried to job out the work. My guess is that the state program side is barebones and some political hack pushed this through.
- dboreham 9y ago
  Interesting. In my teeny tiny company our insurance policy states that we must have all contacts over a certain value reviewed by an attorney. Wondering how a vast beurocracy somehow isn’t subject to that rule?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Lawyers will tell you if things are legal. They won’t generally stop you from doing dumb, legal things.
    - dboreham 9y ago
      In my experience that is absolutely not true. Perhaps you need a better lawyer?
      - avisser 9y ago
        A lawyer who will tell you that a hybrid cloud/on-premises solution using Oracle isn't using today's industry-insider (read: us) agreed best practices and might waste a bunch of money? Good luck finding and having enough money to pay that lawyer.
        dboreham 9y ago
        We're talking about completely different things. My comment was a follow on to this: >Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. Lawyers exist to make sure you don't sign a contract that is missing standard contract terms.
- yasth 9y ago
  I do kind of suspect that a lot of the problem was really their ability to impose a $1/user "tech" fee. Once you get to that point you really don't have to explain over much to anyone unless things go massively wrong (which they did here). They'd probably have been much better off it they hadn't managed to get a truly massive amount of money together. Spending tons of money properly is far harder than people realize. Unless you have a cadre of people who've closely managed outsourced contractors before you are basically going to be giving a lot of people learning opportunities on how things can go wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less a political hack than someone getting exactly what they asked for and having no idea what to do with that horrible fate. Imagine quoting millions to fix multiple complex underlying problems and being handed that with what was no doubt an unrealistic timeline.If adding people to a late project often makes it later, the same is often true of money. Knowing how to spend millions of dollars on a tech project is a skill, and it isn't a common one in chronically underfunded departments.

mrep 9y ago

Happens all the time. Worst example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

Spooky23 9y ago

You can can tell from the auditors report that the RFP or other solicitation was fubar. Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. It also sounds like the project was getting done on the cheap. The actual dollar figure is buried a bit... it sounds like they got their hands on a big wad of cash and went on a spending spree. I bet they bought a new mainframe, lots of of network crap, etc. The poor procurement practices led to the state ending up with some two-bit bodyshop that just tried to job out the work. My guess is that the state program side is barebones and some political hack pushed this through.

dboreham 9y ago
Interesting. In my teeny tiny company our insurance policy states that we must have all contacts over a certain value reviewed by an attorney. Wondering how a vast beurocracy somehow isn’t subject to that rule?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Lawyers will tell you if things are legal. They won’t generally stop you from doing dumb, legal things.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    In my experience that is absolutely not true. Perhaps you need a better lawyer?
    - avisser 9y ago
      A lawyer who will tell you that a hybrid cloud/on-premises solution using Oracle isn't using today's industry-insider (read: us) agreed best practices and might waste a bunch of money? Good luck finding and having enough money to pay that lawyer.
      - dboreham 9y ago
        We're talking about completely different things. My comment was a follow on to this: >Many of the deficiencies there are standard contract terms that were probably missing. Lawyers exist to make sure you don't sign a contract that is missing standard contract terms.
yasth 9y ago
I do kind of suspect that a lot of the problem was really their ability to impose a $1/user "tech" fee. Once you get to that point you really don't have to explain over much to anyone unless things go massively wrong (which they did here). They'd probably have been much better off it they hadn't managed to get a truly massive amount of money together. Spending tons of money properly is far harder than people realize. Unless you have a cadre of people who've closely managed outsourced contractors before you are basically going to be giving a lot of people learning opportunities on how things can go wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less a political hack than someone getting exactly what they asked for and having no idea what to do with that horrible fate. Imagine quoting millions to fix multiple complex underlying problems and being handed that with what was no doubt an unrealistic timeline.If adding people to a late project often makes it later, the same is often true of money. Knowing how to spend millions of dollars on a tech project is a skill, and it isn't a common one in chronically underfunded departments.