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> I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government. Generally speaking, they aren't. I remember commenting (years ago) on here on an arti

> I just wish more firms were honest rather than milking the government. Generally speaking, they aren't. I remember commenting (years ago) on here on an article about the government paying a million dollars for what amounted to basically a Wordpress installation that anyone here could do in ~half an hour. Maybe a million dollars sounds like a lot, but to those who've actually _worked_ as a government contractor, it seems fairly reasonable. Consider: * You need to have past relevant qualifications for other government agencies, so the only people who can install blogs for the government are those who have installed blogs for the government. If nobody has ever installed a blog for the government, they'll leverage the closest relevant experience they can. * You need to have a contracts attorney on staff for the duration of the contract, and since you likely don't want to fire them every few weeks, that's a year's commitment at (conservatively) $200k * You need to have a physical address -- weirdly, the government isn't keen on home addresses and/or 100% distributed teams * You'll need to hire a software architect (maybe 2) to justify the changes needed to __competitors who also likely placed bids on your contract and didn't win but who also have existing contracts managing the database, network, etc__ * Those competitors want you to fail so that the contract will get rebid so that they can try again, now armed with the information you presented them * Nobody in the government wants your project to succeed, and will actively try to get it to fail quietly * If it ever seems as though your project might achieve success, every stakeholder will want to jump on board your ship -- not in an effort to sink it, but so they can make their mark on the project and have their names associated with a potential success * It takes decision-by-committee to get even the smallest thing done, and a Wordpress blog is comprised of mostly small things. The smaller the thing, the bigger the committee. (I once had to bill the government 24 man hours at a median rate of $100 an hour because the CTO of the agency pulled 4 of us in a meeting for 6 hours to "discuss" which header background we preferred -- one was a winter shot that allowed visibility of the building, the other was a summer shot where trees obscured it... the winter shot felt dead and colorless, but the summer shot obscured their fancy new $130 million building)

wslack 5y ago
There are many situations where the government isn't managing work well but because that fiscally helps the contractor, the contractor works - hard - to keep the status quo in place. That is to the detriment of all of the other companies that could do it more efficiently. This is also why we need strong technologists in government to ensure the contracts are written correctly from the start.
godelski 5y ago
I think you better gave examples of government being inefficient. But also I was to add that there are places that do milk the government. Both of these can be true. It's not homogeneous. But you're right that we should be more nuanced and it's good to have an insider perspective. For a more funny example of your point, I like The Pentagon Wars' Bradley tank evolution https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA
- bmelton 5y ago
  The accurate familiarity of that is exactly why I ~no longer~ work with the government
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    It's amazing (in the most uncharitable sense of the word) that a bunch of private sector office workers who joke about how relatable The Office is don't realize that stuff like Pentagon Wars (for feds) and Parks and Rec (for state and local government) are also basically documentaries for their respective industries. I could mortar the cognitive dissonance together and build a wall.
- TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
  That was amazing
- samhw 5y ago
  This got me reading about the history of 'armored fighting vehicles', and eventually this early model, which I still can't stop laughing at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Simms_Motor_Scout_from_Autocar.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Simms_Mo... It, uh, certainly can't be faulted for its complexity.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    That's actually kind of a brilliant design given the time period, once you look at other designs of the era that either have no idea what they actually want to accomplish, or try to do everything and so succeed at nothing at all, or both.
paulmd 5y ago
Ironically the amount of oversight and red-tape is so intense that it becomes self-defeating. The only companies who are capable of successfully bidding and executing the contract are the exact sorts of companies you don't want winning the contract. The small, agile team full of domain experts isn't going to be able to jump the hoops to win the bid - they don't even have a contracting lawyer / combat-disabled veteran owner / etc. I don't like the idea of my tax money getting wasted by Lockheed or Accenture on a failed project with no recourse, any more than anyone else, but I'm not convinced that micromanaging the bidding and execution actually resolves that. At a certain point you're chasing away the talent and selecting for the players that are willing to play your games rather than the best ones to do the job. The way I always viewed it was that the USG just was willing to pay a large amount of money to sit in meetings and talk to contract officers, and if that's what they want to spend their money on, fine, we'll provide that service. Which is exactly why everything is expensive and nothing gets done. It's the contracting version of "nothing is getting done, let's add a daily meeting to make sure that productivity remains high". At a certain point you'll chase away the 20% who are getting the work done, but you'll always have the 1xers and 0.1xers who are content to sit in meetings and take home a check every 2 weeks. If you keep doing it - that's what you'll be selecting for, and you'll end up with the Dead Sea effect but with contractors instead of employees. Which is where we are today, it's a toxic environment and the only thing that can survive are organisms that are specially adapted for it.
- bmelton 5y ago
  Agreed completely, and many times the contracting owner is a figurehead with zero job responsibilities who just takes down a grand salary so that the contractor employing him is eligible for more contract opportunities.
jrib 5y ago
So did you go with the summer shot or winter shot? I can understand having the sentiment: > Nobody in the government wants your project to succeed, and will actively try to get it to fail quietly But I actually think Hanlon's razor applies. I think individuals do want your project to succeed but there are often systemic issues that make it seem otherwise. These systemic issues are not easily affected by individuals.

wslack 5y ago

There are many situations where the government isn't managing work well but because that fiscally helps the contractor, the contractor works - hard - to keep the status quo in place. That is to the detriment of all of the other companies that could do it more efficiently. This is also why we need strong technologists in government to ensure the contracts are written correctly from the start.

godelski 5y ago

I think you better gave examples of government being inefficient. But also I was to add that there are places that do milk the government. Both of these can be true. It's not homogeneous. But you're right that we should be more nuanced and it's good to have an insider perspective. For a more funny example of your point, I like The Pentagon Wars' Bradley tank evolution https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA

bmelton 5y ago
The accurate familiarity of that is exactly why I ~no longer~ work with the government
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  It's amazing (in the most uncharitable sense of the word) that a bunch of private sector office workers who joke about how relatable The Office is don't realize that stuff like Pentagon Wars (for feds) and Parks and Rec (for state and local government) are also basically documentaries for their respective industries. I could mortar the cognitive dissonance together and build a wall.
TYPE_FASTER 5y ago
That was amazing
samhw 5y ago
This got me reading about the history of 'armored fighting vehicles', and eventually this early model, which I still can't stop laughing at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Simms_Motor_Scout_from_Autocar.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Simms_Mo... It, uh, certainly can't be faulted for its complexity.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  That's actually kind of a brilliant design given the time period, once you look at other designs of the era that either have no idea what they actually want to accomplish, or try to do everything and so succeed at nothing at all, or both.

paulmd 5y ago

Ironically the amount of oversight and red-tape is so intense that it becomes self-defeating. The only companies who are capable of successfully bidding and executing the contract are the exact sorts of companies you don't want winning the contract. The small, agile team full of domain experts isn't going to be able to jump the hoops to win the bid - they don't even have a contracting lawyer / combat-disabled veteran owner / etc. I don't like the idea of my tax money getting wasted by Lockheed or Accenture on a failed project with no recourse, any more than anyone else, but I'm not convinced that micromanaging the bidding and execution actually resolves that. At a certain point you're chasing away the talent and selecting for the players that are willing to play your games rather than the best ones to do the job. The way I always viewed it was that the USG just was willing to pay a large amount of money to sit in meetings and talk to contract officers, and if that's what they want to spend their money on, fine, we'll provide that service. Which is exactly why everything is expensive and nothing gets done. It's the contracting version of "nothing is getting done, let's add a daily meeting to make sure that productivity remains high". At a certain point you'll chase away the 20% who are getting the work done, but you'll always have the 1xers and 0.1xers who are content to sit in meetings and take home a check every 2 weeks. If you keep doing it - that's what you'll be selecting for, and you'll end up with the Dead Sea effect but with contractors instead of employees. Which is where we are today, it's a toxic environment and the only thing that can survive are organisms that are specially adapted for it.

bmelton 5y ago
Agreed completely, and many times the contracting owner is a figurehead with zero job responsibilities who just takes down a grand salary so that the contractor employing him is eligible for more contract opportunities.

jrib 5y ago

So did you go with the summer shot or winter shot? I can understand having the sentiment: > Nobody in the government wants your project to succeed, and will actively try to get it to fail quietly But I actually think Hanlon's razor applies. I think individuals do want your project to succeed but there are often systemic issues that make it seem otherwise. These systemic issues are not easily affected by individuals.