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Although New York has "received a working system that will advance our management ability ... because the project was apparently tainted by fraud and kickback s

by thematt 15y ago

Although New York has "received a working system that will advance our management ability ... because the project was apparently tainted by fraud and kickback schemes, the City must be made whole" ... The city is also planning to launch a request for information (RFI) process in January in search of alternative timekeeping systems. Wow. So they eventually got a working system. Now they're throwing it away and going to purchase a new one? Meanwhile turning 83 contractors into FTE's to maintain the existing system? This seems like complete craziness for something as commoditized as timekeeping software.

kmfrk 15y ago
This is fairly common; a decent, working solution already exists, but (the) government wants to do its own instead of adopting the existing system, and the bills begin piling up.
bradleyland 15y ago
It would seem that way, but this is municipal government, so there is likely local code (law) that imposes requirements that will boggle your mind and are likely unique to NYC. Take any trivial software task, target municipalities as your customer, and you'd better triple your budgets. Municipal governments are a large portion of our business, so I'm intimately familiar with the challenges. What's unfortunate is that it's infrequently the fault of the individuals running the municipality. We meet a lot of really great people out in the field. It's just that they're doing their job with one hand tied behind their back. They have to operate within a framework that is (mis)guided by public interest.
kenjackson 15y ago
Timekeeping systems are actually extremely complicated. EXTREMELY sophisticated. The level of detail it takes to get one right is painstaking, and it is key to a city's survival. It's complex enough that you wouldn't understand it, nor would any auditor. For that reason, I just started a new startup company: TimeKeep NYC. We specialize in timekeeping software for NYC area cities. Looking for employees now, especially ones who aren't snitches. Based on past products in this market, I think we can do quite well.
- jerf 15y ago
  To be fair, timekeeping software really isn't as trivial as you might like, at least assuming that we want to move beyond the raw recording of who worked when out into actual management of such things. Requirements come from federal, state, and local laws, as well as negotiations with all relevant unions. So even before you've gotten to the usual BS requirements laid on by management, you've already got a large pile of requirements that A: are legally mandated and B: written without so much as five minutes consultation with a software engineer. But, yeah, on the other hand that's just the usual business software story. 10x budget overruns are probably not called for.
  - ams6110 15y ago
    But, really.... timekeeping and payroll were some of the FIRST business applications developed. It's a solved problem at this point, even with all the nuances. Developing this from scratch for NYC seems like the epitome of reinventing the wheel.
    - mattmanser 15y ago
      No enterprise software is a solved problem yet, there's a lot of bad software dominating at the moment (look no further than sage for accounting for example), any enterprise software you randomly pick will suffer from at least one of: - Have bloody awful UIs - Aren't extensible - Need a massive amount of expensive consultant days to setup - Are very brittle - Have an overwhelming list of features which make them very hard to use - Have bizarre restrictions on certain data (e.g. max 100 chars for a comment) - They're not capable of talking with common system X - Don't expose an API - Have atrocious db structure making reporting extremely expensive in dev time - Use a home rolled DB (oh. god. no.) As for the problem of timekeeping being extremely complex, it's not at all. It's difficult, but solvable with one or two decent developers/project managers in a few months. I know as I've seen it done twice now. It's only extremely complex if you try and include every weird quirk and feature that every client has ask for. Sometimes the solution isn't extending the software, it's changing the business process or simply leaving them on the old paper system. If you take a 37signals-esque path you've got something that'll sell to 80% of businesses, let niche software cover the rest.
mavelikara 15y ago
For those wondering how the project could have cost so much, here are some of the annual salaries that were paid out: Job Title Annual Salary ------------------------------------------- Specialist, Level 4A $676, 031 Project Manager, Level 4 $661, 628 Project Manager, Level 3 $632, 653 Project Manager, Level 3D $601, 286 From http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Gerard+Denault/photos http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Gerard+Denault/photos
- calloc 15y ago
  Those job titles are set by the government and specify what pay is going to be. My job title at my current company is Computer Analyst, yet I am a computer programmer. The gov't contract we have mandates that specific title.
  - lobster_johnson 15y ago
    And yet what programmer, or project manager, has a salary of $676,031? Those are top-level manager salaries.
- ap22213 15y ago
  Yeah, those look like outrageous salaries. But, to be fair, I doubt they are salaries. They're probably derived from hourly consultant rates of around $250 / hour.
emehrkay 15y ago
I could write one this weekend for only 3 million dollars. Somebody get me bloomberg's info
- patio11 15y ago
  Do payroll slips issued by the system to part-time workers have the option to translate the statement of worker's rights mandated by NY city law on the back of the slip into Mandarin Chinese? No? "Did you even read the bid document? It was right there on page 487 where it said 'The system must be fully compliant with NYC labor law.'" There are literally a hundred thousand requirements like that one.

by thematt 15y ago

kmfrk 15y ago

This is fairly common; a decent, working solution already exists, but (the) government wants to do its own instead of adopting the existing system, and the bills begin piling up.

bradleyland 15y ago

It would seem that way, but this is municipal government, so there is likely local code (law) that imposes requirements that will boggle your mind and are likely unique to NYC. Take any trivial software task, target municipalities as your customer, and you'd better triple your budgets. Municipal governments are a large portion of our business, so I'm intimately familiar with the challenges. What's unfortunate is that it's infrequently the fault of the individuals running the municipality. We meet a lot of really great people out in the field. It's just that they're doing their job with one hand tied behind their back. They have to operate within a framework that is (mis)guided by public interest.

kenjackson 15y ago

Timekeeping systems are actually extremely complicated. EXTREMELY sophisticated. The level of detail it takes to get one right is painstaking, and it is key to a city's survival. It's complex enough that you wouldn't understand it, nor would any auditor. For that reason, I just started a new startup company: TimeKeep NYC. We specialize in timekeeping software for NYC area cities. Looking for employees now, especially ones who aren't snitches. Based on past products in this market, I think we can do quite well.

jerf 15y ago
To be fair, timekeeping software really isn't as trivial as you might like, at least assuming that we want to move beyond the raw recording of who worked when out into actual management of such things. Requirements come from federal, state, and local laws, as well as negotiations with all relevant unions. So even before you've gotten to the usual BS requirements laid on by management, you've already got a large pile of requirements that A: are legally mandated and B: written without so much as five minutes consultation with a software engineer. But, yeah, on the other hand that's just the usual business software story. 10x budget overruns are probably not called for.
- ams6110 15y ago
  But, really.... timekeeping and payroll were some of the FIRST business applications developed. It's a solved problem at this point, even with all the nuances. Developing this from scratch for NYC seems like the epitome of reinventing the wheel.
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    No enterprise software is a solved problem yet, there's a lot of bad software dominating at the moment (look no further than sage for accounting for example), any enterprise software you randomly pick will suffer from at least one of: - Have bloody awful UIs - Aren't extensible - Need a massive amount of expensive consultant days to setup - Are very brittle - Have an overwhelming list of features which make them very hard to use - Have bizarre restrictions on certain data (e.g. max 100 chars for a comment) - They're not capable of talking with common system X - Don't expose an API - Have atrocious db structure making reporting extremely expensive in dev time - Use a home rolled DB (oh. god. no.) As for the problem of timekeeping being extremely complex, it's not at all. It's difficult, but solvable with one or two decent developers/project managers in a few months. I know as I've seen it done twice now. It's only extremely complex if you try and include every weird quirk and feature that every client has ask for. Sometimes the solution isn't extending the software, it's changing the business process or simply leaving them on the old paper system. If you take a 37signals-esque path you've got something that'll sell to 80% of businesses, let niche software cover the rest.

mavelikara 15y ago

For those wondering how the project could have cost so much, here are some of the annual salaries that were paid out: Job Title Annual Salary ------------------------------------------- Specialist, Level 4A $676, 031 Project Manager, Level 4 $661, 628 Project Manager, Level 3 $632, 653 Project Manager, Level 3D $601, 286 From http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Gerard+Denault/photos http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Gerard+Denault/photos

calloc 15y ago
Those job titles are set by the government and specify what pay is going to be. My job title at my current company is Computer Analyst, yet I am a computer programmer. The gov't contract we have mandates that specific title.
- lobster_johnson 15y ago
  And yet what programmer, or project manager, has a salary of $676,031? Those are top-level manager salaries.
ap22213 15y ago
Yeah, those look like outrageous salaries. But, to be fair, I doubt they are salaries. They're probably derived from hourly consultant rates of around $250 / hour.

emehrkay 15y ago

I could write one this weekend for only 3 million dollars. Somebody get me bloomberg's info

patio11 15y ago
Do payroll slips issued by the system to part-time workers have the option to translate the statement of worker's rights mandated by NY city law on the back of the slip into Mandarin Chinese? No? "Did you even read the bid document? It was right there on page 487 where it said 'The system must be fully compliant with NYC labor law.'" There are literally a hundred thousand requirements like that one.