5 ms·

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 a

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.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    tl;dr it's not working Well how the hell do we have a £40M contract for supply of laptops to schoolkids filled by a noname laptop supplier using the jankiest (really low quality, really poor spec) laptops worth maybe £100 but being charged to the taxpayer at >£300 each. School IT people are getting them delivered, a lot are broken, and the cost of repair is given as more than the cost of buying _retail_ a better replacement. I don't know how these people live with themselves, ripping off the taxpayer and lumping in-need schoolkids with poor equipment. Anyone in that decision chain could spend an hour reading "budget laptop" articles on trusted websites, then look on the website of a high-street supplier for a top price. Boom, saved the taxpayer £20M. Mind you at least something was delivered, current UK government tenders appear to be typified by non-delivery by completely inexperienced companies for costs well above market.
    - wp381640 6y ago
      The equiv contract in Australia went to Lenovo. Microsoft and Adobe preloaded the laptops with Office and Adobe Suite and no cost. Worked out pretty well.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      This is especially sad given that the BBC micro project in the 80's was a resounding success and showed exactly how these project should be run.
- hef19898 6y ago
  I used to work for a consultancy that almost exclusively worked for the German armed forces. And pretty signficant chunk of these contracts evolved around requirements and specification documents. Basically we wrote them, the way the armyed forces wnated them to be written, and they just signed of on them. That was equally shocking as it was hilarious sometimes. The sad thing, almost the complete management of that firm, and the majority of employees, used to be former Army, Navy or Airforce. Or from the civil admin staff. I always wondered how much value we actually created, the amount of additional expertise was quite limited.
- wffurr 6y ago
  US Digital Service. GSA 18f. They already exist. Mysterious why CDC didn't use them. Maybe they are hollowed out after the Trump years. I know I wouldn't have stuck around.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - atlgator 6y ago
    In my 10 years supporting CDC, I can tell you 18f is nonexistent there. Nothing to do with the administrations.
moritonal 6y ago
If I asked our procurement team to get me a distributed version-control software to use I'd be given a site-wide license of Perforce before being given git. So enevitably requirements are tailored to what I want. It seems someone wanted Deloitte, why (and how expensive was the dinner) is another question.
- pauljurczak 6y ago
  Do you think one expensive dinner was all it took? ;-)
  - jeffwilcox 6y ago
    What if the demoralizing answer is... yes, just one dinner!
theshrike79 6y ago
Politics. This is how hospital software is handled (at least in Finland). The one making the decisions is the head doctor in the hospital, because they have the most power. They know fuck-all about software and fuck-all about the day to day work of the nurses and doctors who need to use the product every day. And this is pretty much how we ended up giving Epic Systems 774 million for their MUMPS-flavoured piece of shit rebranded as "Apotti". And the project - started in 2015 - isn't even done, nor bug-free yet. The American model of everything being cost first didn't fit the Finnish model of medicine - to the surprise of no-one outside of the organisation. It was so bad that other cities refused to use it and went with their own solutions instead of using Apotti.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Not the same industry, but it’s changing. Silicon Valley meets big Gov: https://a16z.com/2019/10/03/anduril/ https://a16z.com/2019/10/03/anduril/ Basically, build first at the VC’s risk and then deliver a finished product to Gov.
- specialist 6y ago
  Dr Corn Flower (Blue). That was our nickname for our worst customer. Some wannabe nerd promoted to CIO, probably to keep him away from patients and the other staff. His most substantial contribution was divining the precise shade of the highlight color used by our theme. Our "portal" had labs, scripts, meds, notes, referrals, and on and on. Stuff like lab reports were industry standard (we had domain experts on our team). Dr Corn Flower had opinions on all of it. Not detail too small to argue about. Every pixel mattered. We eventually got to the point where two team member's full time job was babysitting Dr Corn Flower, while others were permitted to do real work (skunkworks style). And that was just one hospital. We had dozens of other customers, and 100s of partners.
closeparen 6y ago
Procurement teams are not the ones doing the work, they are centralized bureaucratic functions to which requests go in and products come out. They have a habit of buying stuff that actual practitioners would never buy: inappropriate to the use case, known poor quality, off-brand knockoff of something practitioners actually like, etc. Any latitude in the requirements will be used in the dumbest possible way. There’s a whole cottage industry of products for government that meet naively written specs but are actually crap. Imagine hiring web developers with only HR on the interview loop, no manager or team rounds.

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.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  tl;dr it's not working Well how the hell do we have a £40M contract for supply of laptops to schoolkids filled by a noname laptop supplier using the jankiest (really low quality, really poor spec) laptops worth maybe £100 but being charged to the taxpayer at >£300 each. School IT people are getting them delivered, a lot are broken, and the cost of repair is given as more than the cost of buying _retail_ a better replacement. I don't know how these people live with themselves, ripping off the taxpayer and lumping in-need schoolkids with poor equipment. Anyone in that decision chain could spend an hour reading "budget laptop" articles on trusted websites, then look on the website of a high-street supplier for a top price. Boom, saved the taxpayer £20M. Mind you at least something was delivered, current UK government tenders appear to be typified by non-delivery by completely inexperienced companies for costs well above market.
  - wp381640 6y ago
    The equiv contract in Australia went to Lenovo. Microsoft and Adobe preloaded the laptops with Office and Adobe Suite and no cost. Worked out pretty well.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    This is especially sad given that the BBC micro project in the 80's was a resounding success and showed exactly how these project should be run.
hef19898 6y ago
I used to work for a consultancy that almost exclusively worked for the German armed forces. And pretty signficant chunk of these contracts evolved around requirements and specification documents. Basically we wrote them, the way the armyed forces wnated them to be written, and they just signed of on them. That was equally shocking as it was hilarious sometimes. The sad thing, almost the complete management of that firm, and the majority of employees, used to be former Army, Navy or Airforce. Or from the civil admin staff. I always wondered how much value we actually created, the amount of additional expertise was quite limited.
wffurr 6y ago
US Digital Service. GSA 18f. They already exist. Mysterious why CDC didn't use them. Maybe they are hollowed out after the Trump years. I know I wouldn't have stuck around.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- atlgator 6y ago
  In my 10 years supporting CDC, I can tell you 18f is nonexistent there. Nothing to do with the administrations.

moritonal 6y ago

If I asked our procurement team to get me a distributed version-control software to use I'd be given a site-wide license of Perforce before being given git. So enevitably requirements are tailored to what I want. It seems someone wanted Deloitte, why (and how expensive was the dinner) is another question.

pauljurczak 6y ago
Do you think one expensive dinner was all it took? ;-)
- jeffwilcox 6y ago
  What if the demoralizing answer is... yes, just one dinner!

theshrike79 6y ago

Politics. This is how hospital software is handled (at least in Finland). The one making the decisions is the head doctor in the hospital, because they have the most power. They know fuck-all about software and fuck-all about the day to day work of the nurses and doctors who need to use the product every day. And this is pretty much how we ended up giving Epic Systems 774 million for their MUMPS-flavoured piece of shit rebranded as "Apotti". And the project - started in 2015 - isn't even done, nor bug-free yet. The American model of everything being cost first didn't fit the Finnish model of medicine - to the surprise of no-one outside of the organisation. It was so bad that other cities refused to use it and went with their own solutions instead of using Apotti.

systemvoltage 6y ago
Not the same industry, but it’s changing. Silicon Valley meets big Gov: https://a16z.com/2019/10/03/anduril/ https://a16z.com/2019/10/03/anduril/ Basically, build first at the VC’s risk and then deliver a finished product to Gov.
specialist 6y ago
Dr Corn Flower (Blue). That was our nickname for our worst customer. Some wannabe nerd promoted to CIO, probably to keep him away from patients and the other staff. His most substantial contribution was divining the precise shade of the highlight color used by our theme. Our "portal" had labs, scripts, meds, notes, referrals, and on and on. Stuff like lab reports were industry standard (we had domain experts on our team). Dr Corn Flower had opinions on all of it. Not detail too small to argue about. Every pixel mattered. We eventually got to the point where two team member's full time job was babysitting Dr Corn Flower, while others were permitted to do real work (skunkworks style). And that was just one hospital. We had dozens of other customers, and 100s of partners.

closeparen 6y ago

Procurement teams are not the ones doing the work, they are centralized bureaucratic functions to which requests go in and products come out. They have a habit of buying stuff that actual practitioners would never buy: inappropriate to the use case, known poor quality, off-brand knockoff of something practitioners actually like, etc. Any latitude in the requirements will be used in the dumbest possible way. There’s a whole cottage industry of products for government that meet naively written specs but are actually crap. Imagine hiring web developers with only HR on the interview loop, no manager or team rounds.