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> The project was meant to save costs by firing 1,200 employees handling payroll at various departments around the country and replacing them with about 500 peo

> The project was meant to save costs by firing 1,200 employees handling payroll at various departments around the country and replacing them with about 500 people in a centralized location using Phoenix to handle most of the government’s payroll needs. > The government will spend C$431 million to keep the program running in the near term, on top of C$460 million already spent to put Phoenix in place and fix the problems it generated. So for each of the individual salaries Phoenix was supposed to eliminate, they spent C$600k ($500k USD) in up-front costs, and it will be another C$600k to clean up the mess. Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care? Maybe there should be some kind of advisory board system for large software projects, made up of disinterested-yet-well-informed techies, similar to what exists for corporations.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Maybe there should be some kind of advisory board system Committees are a bad way to solve a problem of mis-aligned interests.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  Perhaps we (developers) could improve the industry as a whole if we can provide a solution to this misalignment of interests.
bhouston 9y ago
> I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care? I think from the perspective of IBM, this contract has been good. They made way more from the Canadian government than they initially estimated the contract to be.
gaius 9y ago
Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care? Oh they knew, and they cared... about the money
dade_ 9y ago
There is some missing math. They likely have 30 or 40 payroll systems all up for renewal/replacement. The old systems are probably loaded with features and forgotten requirements that would have been discovered during deployment.
- pixl97 9y ago
  Govt.office "We need to open these X year old databases/files for tax purposes once a year" Programmer.ibm "What the hell format is this?!"
nkassis 9y ago
"Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care?" Well they do make a lot of money while building said software, large expensive projects are the kinds IBM gravitates towards. Most likely because it's easier to extract large amounts of money from them and it's hard to rein in the costs with oversight.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Maybe there should be some kind of advisory board system Committees are a bad way to solve a problem of mis-aligned interests.

tboyd47 9y ago
Perhaps we (developers) could improve the industry as a whole if we can provide a solution to this misalignment of interests.

bhouston 9y ago

> I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care? I think from the perspective of IBM, this contract has been good. They made way more from the Canadian government than they initially estimated the contract to be.

gaius 9y ago

Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care? Oh they knew, and they cared... about the money

dade_ 9y ago

There is some missing math. They likely have 30 or 40 payroll systems all up for renewal/replacement. The old systems are probably loaded with features and forgotten requirements that would have been discovered during deployment.

pixl97 9y ago
Govt.office "We need to open these X year old databases/files for tax purposes once a year" Programmer.ibm "What the hell format is this?!"

nkassis 9y ago

"Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care?" Well they do make a lot of money while building said software, large expensive projects are the kinds IBM gravitates towards. Most likely because it's easier to extract large amounts of money from them and it's hard to rein in the costs with oversight.