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The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is

The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.

spaced-out 7y ago
Is this a problem unique to the US? Or is it just worse in the US than in Taiwan?
- pas 7y ago
  Sort of. The US is big and rich (so small mistakes compound into really big expensive errors fast/eventually) and sort of refuses to shop abroad for expertise, because. Reasons.
wwweston 7y ago
While I’m always a fan of remembering that incentives matter (and believe that some degree citizen attention is a price for a well-functioning government), I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft.
- pas 7y ago
  It's not graft exactly, but simply the project structure leads to enormous inefficiencies. Eg subcontractors cannot work/meet/organize/plan directly with each other, because financial interests put silly lines in the sand. (Just think about how slow/dumb things can become if the backend, frontend and ops are completely separated, plus there's a middle layer (the general contractor) between them and the stakeholders.) Plus, it seems that the main problem is that there's simply not enough experience/expertise at governments for managing/planning/executing these projects. Because too few people are in-house (or on payroll/retainer with the right/aligned incentives), and too few projects are done, so no competent team forms over time.
- malandrew 7y ago
  > I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft. We're not talking about projects in the private domain. We're talking about government projects. Look at the Obamacare website boondoggle. Or the recent lack of backups in Baltimore when hit with ransomware. When it's a government project, it's very fair to consider graft and corruption as the primary causes, especially as they often lead to favoring incompetent people in charge of executing the project.

The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.

spaced-out 7y ago

Is this a problem unique to the US? Or is it just worse in the US than in Taiwan?

pas 7y ago
Sort of. The US is big and rich (so small mistakes compound into really big expensive errors fast/eventually) and sort of refuses to shop abroad for expertise, because. Reasons.

wwweston 7y ago

While I’m always a fan of remembering that incentives matter (and believe that some degree citizen attention is a price for a well-functioning government), I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft.

pas 7y ago
It's not graft exactly, but simply the project structure leads to enormous inefficiencies. Eg subcontractors cannot work/meet/organize/plan directly with each other, because financial interests put silly lines in the sand. (Just think about how slow/dumb things can become if the backend, frontend and ops are completely separated, plus there's a middle layer (the general contractor) between them and the stakeholders.) Plus, it seems that the main problem is that there's simply not enough experience/expertise at governments for managing/planning/executing these projects. Because too few people are in-house (or on payroll/retainer with the right/aligned incentives), and too few projects are done, so no competent team forms over time.
malandrew 7y ago
> I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft. We're not talking about projects in the private domain. We're talking about government projects. Look at the Obamacare website boondoggle. Or the recent lack of backups in Baltimore when hit with ransomware. When it's a government project, it's very fair to consider graft and corruption as the primary causes, especially as they often lead to favoring incompetent people in charge of executing the project.