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> Deloitte is the only contractor that can meet the project requirements, because configuration of the VAMS application is occurring using Deloitte’s propriety

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• satya71 6y ago
  Holy cow! Talk about vendor lock-in! Even AWS is easier to get out of.
• faramarz 6y ago
  Wow! the next article should be about who signed that contract!
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• animex 6y ago
  US Digital Service Assemble!
  • JoBrad 6y ago
    Exactly. We need someone to “Amazon” the shit out of our governmental computing systems (e.g. APIs everywhere), especially those designed to interact with other systems. They should be required to use an accessible API with published schemas and documentation. I’m surprised someone hasn’t identified this as a stability and security risk for our government.
    • animex 6y ago
      Yeah, we need the US Digital Service for oversight and prevent this type of failure as much as we need them to parachute in after-the-fact. Prevent Vendor-Thanos from ever finishing the Infinity Revenue Gauntlet.
• mgh2 6y ago
  Isn't Palantir doing something similar?
  • MikeDelta 6y ago
    Yes they are from what I understood. Clever strategy if you are dealing with a client who doesn't see further than the next move.
    • mgh2 6y ago
      Can't they help?
• aasasd 6y ago
  Reads like a copy of Russian government contract practices. Put up a contest, list requirements in such a way that only one company would satisfy them without going bust or mad, award the contract to that company. ‘Make the thing using this and that technologies’ does appear regularly.
  • smsm42 6y ago
    Russia at some point instituted a law that all contracts have to be published in a centralized database. So, to award contracts to specific companies, an array of techniques was developed to prevent anyone from using that database to bid on those contracts. The names of the goods are misspelled, spelled using a mix of Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, the items are required to be of specific model with tiny modification from common one that only one (pre-arranged) provider happens to have, unusual names are used for goods, etc. etc. It's a whole branch of art now.
  • pessimizer 6y ago
    It's absurdly common and has nothing to do with Russia other than plenty of Russians also do it. The reason you pay more to get a political job than political jobs pay is because you get control of contracts. Contracts get you rich. edit: Speaking from direct American government experience.
    • aasasd 6y ago
      Yeah, I'm pretty sure we don't have a monopoly on such practices, only couldn't remember if I ever read about Western procedures and misconducts with these contests. Dunno even what they're properly called—it's a ‘tender’ here. However, I'm familiar with the term ‘kickback’...
      • Jare 6y ago
        Also its less spectacular but more long term, "revolving door".
        • 6y ago
• smsm42 6y ago
  Somebody had written this with exact purpose to give this contract to Deloitte. I would be very surprised if there wasn't bribery involved.
  • 8bitsrule 6y ago
    Geez, I thought the whole idea is that 'government is the problem. We need to let the private sector handle all these things.' Making the CDC look bad appears to have been part of that program last year. Shame the price has been so high.
    • smsm42 6y ago
      Well, the thing is that when the government takes tax money and allocates it to private companies via obscure and arguably corrupt procedures, you get the worst of both worlds. Inefficiency and rigidity of the government, combined with opacity and greed of the private companies. When people say privatizing things could be a solution, they don't usually mean "take tax money and award it through a no-bid contract to a private company for laughable reasons which could be either stupid or corrupt, your choice". At least if those aren't the people who are getting no-bid contracts, those people mean exactly that. > Making the CDC look bad appears to have been part of that program last year You sound like somebody outside CDC on purpose went and made CDC look bad. As far as I can see here, CDC did it to itself - and it's way not the only messup they had recently, they also totally bungled covid tests rollout. There seems to be serious trouble there, and if they think they will be excused because of the pandemic - they unfortunately may be right, but this only means the rot will continue.
      • narrator 6y ago
        >you get the worst of both worlds. Inefficiency and rigidity of the government, combined with opacity and greed of the private companies. This is what is being referred to when a politician used the words "public/private partnership.'
        • smsm42 6y ago
• closeparen 6y ago
  For your next laptop, car, etc. try doing what you think the government ought to do here. Write down the requirements, give them to a neutral third party who doesn’t doesn’t use computers/drive, and ask them to figure out the cheapest thing that meets the requirements. Commit yourself to buying only that. See how it goes for you.
  • StavrosK 6y ago
    I don't understand the analogy. Why would I give the requirements for making a website to someone who doesn't make websites? The government should do whatever anyone who wants a website does, hire someone to make a website. What's the issue?
    • rlonn 6y ago
      I think this is what usually happens and what causes many public projects to fail: the customer has no competent staff that can a) write requirements or b) evaluate tenders. They're often incompetent enough to even hire someone competent to do those things. The government should maybe have a dedicated unit that assists other units with procurement of IT solutions. Where the staff gets very well compensated when a project is a success. But that's probably never going to happen, for more than one reason.
      • GordonS 6y ago
        I imagine you are correct that this happens frequently. However, if a large outsourcer like Deloitte gets the gig, they should have the right experience and knowledge to work with the customer to determine what they really need/want, and to steer them through the whole process. They should also ensure they use best practices, such as tests. If a company fails here. I think there is blame to go round on both sides.
      • jon-wood 6y ago
        One of the responsibilities of the UK’s Government Digital Service is to review any IT spending by other departments, and are staffed so that in many cases they can implement and support products themselves rather than outsourcing them. My understanding is that other departments are making headway in being allowed to bypass that process, but at their peak GDS were fantastic at shutting down bad projects before they’d sucked up millions of pounds.
• rishabhd 6y ago
  Hate to say this, but having worked in similar industries, RFPs are sometimes deliberately skewed/ created in a manner that make it hard (or downright impossible) for others to participate.
  • bbarn 6y ago
    A lot of the time, that's ok. A few people in the know want to avoid a lengthy and wasteful evaluation process for the product or company they already feel confident will meet their needs. Or worse, they're afraid someone might underbid, people without context will pick the lowest cost option, and the product or service will end up being a disaster. The problem comes in when things like this happen - that a company forces itself to be the only option through unnecessary infrastructure and proprietary software in the public space.
    • mixedCase 6y ago
      That's why biddings are well-intentioned but mostly bullshit. The biased/corrupt person that ultimately is forcing the decision gets their pick, but doesn't face the full consequences of their decision because "hey it was a bidding, everyone got to offer". People making multi-million dollar decisions should be exposed with plenty of skin in the game for things to ever not be as rigged as they currently are.
    • ghettoCoder 6y ago
      But that’s also a failure of internal IT and processes. These types of architectural decisions really need to go through some sort of ARC before proceeding.
• notagoodidea 6y ago
  That is the easiest a company can leverage an invitation to tender ad infinitum. I believe that going for the cheapest is always the wrong way to conducting those projects. On the company side, bargain you first contract, install your proprietary program, lock everyone up in it and higher your fees when you have leverage on the next requirements. Government, public offers, invitation to tender must not only play by the cheapest but also by the long term impact that changing contractor every 4, 5 years has on their own management and system. This is getting as absurd and stupid. Force contract to use standard/boring technology and leverage a large market of companies for support. Being the cheapest never was a fair decision maker.
• Aeolun 6y ago
  > Deloitte is the only contractor that can achieve the O&M scope and contract requirements Clearly not. Unless... the requirements were garbage to begin with?
• snarf21 6y ago
  This is a major problem with using contractors. They bill by the hour. Their continued employment is not dependent on doing a good job. They half ass everything because it is about billing and being done. Also, doing a bad job means "overruns" for more free money. The government needs a Department of Technology that runs all these systems for all national systems that are needed. This isn't like building a combat fighter, it would be straightforward to be build a team that can build a scalable website with today's technology.
  • info781 6y ago
    Good people want to work at places with stock options and bonuses for good performance, the government can not offer that. Government is more suited for people interested in management, not pure technical people
    • bob1029 6y ago
      The government absolutely could offer competitive incentive packages if the appropriate legislation can be passed. At some point it will become obvious that software complexity is a national security issue. I feel that point still hasn't arrived, for whatever reason. Perhaps the realization has arrived, but those offering the realization have biased the reports to favor themselves (i.e. Deloitte, et. al.)
      • tornato7 6y ago
        Government pay scales probably end up costing them more right now anyway. I would rather hire two software engineers at $250k/yr than ten software engineers at $60k/yr. Because those ten software engineers aren't going to produce anything at all usable.
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
        https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/01/2002126690/-1/-1/0/SWAP%20EXECUTIVE%20SUMMARY.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/01/2002126690/-1/-1/0/SWA... "U.S. national security increasingly relies on software to execute missions, integrate and collaborate with allies, and manage the defense enterprise. The ability to develop, procure, assure, deploy, and continuously improve software is thus central to national defense." We already know it's a national security issue. Nothing is done about it.
• GizmoSwan 6y ago
  The problem is that any success in delivering past contracts does not guarantee success in future in software technology where a typical software technology becomes obsolete every 3 years. In software world things change so fast that someone with 6 years of experience developing software will not have enough experience with newest tools, languages, methods, etc. Newer graduates with experience is newest applications in their resume get hired and they sometimes lack real development experience. Building and delivering software is not like building a road or sidewalk where technology does not change by much every year or decade. They still construct sidewalks like they did say 100 years ago. So major software contractor's success is pretty much random depending on who gets hired and how good the chosen packages are for the given application and how experienced are the staff in putting it together and having good test specs. Another problem in software world is that software developers move to new IPOs and so the staffs are ever more transient. Government jobs with complex hiring practices are actually becoming unattractive to developers.
  • mgkimsal 6y ago
    > The problem is that any success in delivering past contracts does not guarantee success in future in software technology where a typical software technology becomes obsolete every 3 years. They don't even seem to be saying "because Deloitte was successful in the past". It's literally saying "because they're the only ones who have access to their proprietary system that we already locked ourselves in too.... they get the business". "...so the staffs are ever more transient". Yeah, there's some idea that "company X" does ABC. The people at company X do ABC, but you are at the whim of institutional knowledge and tribal info systems within that company. The superstars who made ABC work 4 years ago may all be gone, and the current people are trying to make a name for themselves by making 'The New Process' so any success from ABC isn't at all guaranteed to translate to your new project.
    • GizmoSwan 6y ago
      But they must have had something going for them in the past to get them that status. Nothing happens for no reason. Few cases of success in big projects in the past must have got them in. History has impact on future.
• martincolorado 6y ago
  This right here “configuration of the VAMS application is occurring using Deloitte’s propriety GovConnect platform.” Because it is so difficult to launch a project and provision the requisite infrastructure in the federal government due to various IT regs and laws and subsequently obtain an Authorization To Operate (ATO) in a timely fashion an existing platform is routinely sole sourced especially when speed is necessary. Why? This is both legit and utter bs. Legit: the fed gov actually attempts to protect a persons’ private data. BS: after the drain of the acquisition process (led by non-technical folks), ATO, slide decks to more non-technical management (Deloitte and their peers crush this), the competent folks find other jobs either in or outside gov that free their creativity. Positive: groups like USDS are reducing the drain, but once an exec gets burned they go back to checkbox management and shun the learning organization culture that has made tech the anti-thesis of this type of acquisition in other sectors. *edited misspelling to show gov tries to protect not product privacy data
  • silexia 6y ago
    Government will always be very inefficient. Government certainly has some strong benefits, but you should avoid using government wherever it is not absolutely necessary. Private industry would have done a far better job of handling the vaccine roll out.
    • kcartlidge 6y ago
      > Private industry would have done a far better job of handling the vaccine roll out. The British vaccine is being rolled out by public bodies and is working pretty good indeed (half a million doses a day). Meanwhile our track and trace system, misnamed "NHS Track and Trace", is, despite the name, almost completely outsourced to private industry (and barely even speaks to the NHS). It's universally acknowleged to be an absolute mess.
    • acdha 6y ago
      This is propaganda and you should be more critical of the people peddling it. For example, ask yourself whether Deloitte is part of the federal government or perhaps the solution to this problem isn’t simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker. The same private sector which includes Amazon and Apple also includes Comcast, not to mention Enron. The deeper lesson is to look at incentives: where things go well, the structure encourages the outcome society wants. When they’re misaligned, you get global climate change or the American healthcare system underperforming our peers at whole number cost and stress multiples.
• ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Corporations love regulations. Let’s remember this when we support things like net neutrality. They always try and sneak regulatory burden in any of these bills.
• Trias11 6y ago
  Yup. Allocate budget. Hire few $10/hr offsore guys to craft some frontend in a few months. Transfer money. Deliver kickbaks. Shutdown project. Rinse and repeat.