4 ms·

This is pretty normal for government procurement, though. and in fact, most large organisation procurement. There's a whole wall of standards that the supplier

This is pretty normal for government procurement, though. and in fact, most large organisation procurement. There's a whole wall of standards that the supplier must meet, e.g. ISO9000 that your little web-dev shop almost certainly doesn't. They won't buy from a supplier that is likely to go out of business. There's a ton of other criteria that you've got to meet to get the business. If there's any, even the slightest, chance that buying from a business might one day reflect badly on the civil servant in the procurement office, then they won't buy from that business. The civil servant has nothing to lose from saying "no" and runs a risk if they say "yes". Businesses that do meet these criteria charge like wounded bulls. In part because they know that all the other businesses that the govt could turn to will also charge like wounded bulls.

OkayPhysicist 9mo ago
ISO9000 is, bar none, the most brilliant grift I have ever encountered. It's so simple, yet so elegant. Step 1: Come up with an incredibly easy to meet standard (because you don't want anybody abandoning the process because it's too much of a hassle) that sounds like a reasonable requirement on paper (to make it easy to pitch as a basic requirement of doing business). Say, "Have a plan for the things you do". Step 2: Add one additional requirement to your standard: "Prioritize Vendors that meet this standard". Step 3: Obscure the hell out of the standard, (to not make the grift too obvious) and stick it behind a paywall. Step 4: Franchise out the (nigh-impossible to fail) "approval" process to 3rd parties, who pay you for the privilege. Step 5: Your first few "standardized" companies put pressure on their vendors and customers to get certified, so they hire consultants, who in turn pay you, who tell them "Good job, you meet the standard. But do your vendors?". Step 6: Watch as the cash floods in. (Optional, Step 7): Once a bunch of major companies are certified, target governments to do your marketing push for you.
- gerdesj 9mo ago
  Please show me on the doll where ISO 9000 hurt you! I have been an MD for 25 years. ISO 9001 reg. since 2006. Its been a bit of a pain at times but it does concentrate the mind towards doing things right. We've never used consultants, we've always just read and followed the standards. What is your experience? PS During our last assessment, the assessor described a few recent AI written efforts they had come across. Laughable. PPS I've been doing this for over 25 years and I think that a quality based approach to running a company is a good idea ... you?
  - Supermancho 9mo ago
    My father was a ISO9000 and ISO9001 certification consultant for over 10 years. He taught at Cal Poly Pamona, near the end of that era. This was my first exposure to using the familiar terms seen in RFCs like MUST MAY SHALL, etc. Ever tried to write a quality based document describing how to create an air filled, japanese oragami balloon? (step 3 is the first big hurdle, https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Origami-Balloon https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Origami-Balloon). That was his goto starter for ISO classes. > I've been doing this for over 25 years and I think that a quality based approach to running a company is a good idea ... you? ISO standards don't ensure this, since certification is only based on verifying documentation format. What the ISO processes do tend to do is create a small memo indicating that every dept should justify the work they are doing by writing it down and showing it to their boss. What that does to an organization is to produce a crapload of near-useless documentation and throw a large number of people into political hell. After that, the solution is always the same. They quickly move from everyone trying to coordinate down to a very small number of people (1-3) taking charge of moving dept to dept. Either the agents or the supervisors who are articulate enough to gloss over inconsistencies and gaps to form a coherent story, write the documentation. While this may lend well to shoring up some companies' internals, in the early 2000s, ISO certification consultancy was a lucrative gig. It was chased as a stamp to markup pricing, rather than a quality tool.
    - tverbeure 9mo ago
      I remember the backdated document signing parties at my previous company, the day before an ISO audit. So much fun!
  - napaparts 9mo ago
    I think "concentrates the mind towards doing things right" is an accurate statement. On the other hand the parent is also correct that it is almost impossible to fail and the requirements are too broad to actually have much effect. The most helpful thing is you get the knowledge and experience of an auditor for a day. Other benefits are having someone make you write your processes down and making it easier to replace people, making sure there is a chart documenting the relationships between the people and to have some language about dealing with customer complaints and defective produce.
- hluska 9mo ago
  I’m reading the original tender and there is zero mention of ISO 9000. In fact, the tendering authority even specifically stated this opportunity was a good fit for SMEs. Where does all this talk of standards come from?
  - Aeolun 9mo ago
    If this was a good fit for SME, and the price paid for the whole thing was 4M pounds, why didn’t any SME win the tender? Seriously, that’s the whole yearly turnover for most SME shops I ever worked at. And all of them could do a better job than this.
    - hkt 9mo ago
      That's possibly why: small businesses reliant on contracts that are, to them, disproportionately huge.. well, they die at the end of the contract. HMRC killed off an OpenStack based AWS competitor by replacing them, about ten years ago. Anchor clients can be a real hazard if an SME can't live without them. Sometimes it just isn't worth it.
  - lwhi 9mo ago
    For government tenders, I do know that agencies need certification. Maybe not ISO2001 (which is a security standard that many corporate procurement processes require the supplier to have obtained when purchasing software), but Cyber Essentials / Cyber Essentials Plus is common.
    - rcxdude 9mo ago
      Cyber Essentials is a lot more of a PITA than 9001, it's very prescriptive in ways that cause all kinds of headaches without helping security.
      - henryaj 9mo ago
        I absolutely hated doing Cyber Essentials (Plus). Huge waste of time
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  Just like any other kind of certifications in the same domain. Want to use enterprise product XYZ? Need to have at least X amount of certified employees to reach the basic layer, additional certifications for the next layers. The kind of support tickets, documentation and trainings available depend on the certification levels, and by the way they have to be renewed every couple of years. However it is how the ball rolls in certain industries, and rebeling against it won't win anything, better switch jobs for those anti-certifications.
gerdesj 9mo ago
When was the last time you touted for this sort of business? Strictly speaking its ISO 9001 but we do the same as you and call it ISO 9000. You forgot 27001 and 14001.
- Foobar8568 9mo ago
  Iso that everyone is certified but nobody can truly explain or follow, ensuring the money is extracted to the same bunch of bidders.
- marcus_holmes 9mo ago
  About 20 years ago, so yes, I might be a little out of date ;) I've seen it happen time and again with startups, though. They have a great idea, perfect for a large business to use. They get a project manager or department manager excited about it, they even run a PoC successfully. And then they slap headfirst into the Procurement Wall and the whole project grinds to a halt. Three years between project approval and issuing a purchase order. And then 90 days between invoice and payment. Startups go bust waiting for these cogs to turn.
deaux 9mo ago
> If there's any, even the slightest, chance that buying from a business might one day reflect badly on the civil servant in the procurement office, then they won't buy from that business. This is an absurd statement that might as well come straight out of Yes Minister. Buying from PWC reflects badly on them already, let alone when their next scandal happens. Which is of course never far away [0]. I'm sure Fujitsu met similar "criteria" when selected for Horizon. How well that selection reflected on the procurement office.. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC#Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC#Litigation
- marcus_holmes 9mo ago
  You know Yes Minister was a documentary, right? ;) Buying from PWC reflects badly on them with us, because we know tech. It does not reflect badly with other civil servants, because PWC is a highly-respected organisation. It's very similar to "No-one got fired for buying from IBM", which was a cliche because it was true.
  - bigfatkitten 9mo ago
    > because PWC is a highly-respected organisation. PwC are a well known band of crooks who always put their own enrichment well ahead of the public interest. They were banned entirely from bidding for Australian federal government contracts, because they misused privileged information on tax policy they received from one client (the government) to advise other clients on tax avoidance strategies. It was a symptom of systemic corruption that permeates their entire business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal
    - marcus_holmes 9mo ago
      In Australia, yeah.
      - bigfatkitten 9mo ago
        Only because that’s where they got caught.
woooooo 9mo ago
I think you're being a little unfair to the civil servant who has to follow the law regarding procurement. I once knew someone who had to solicit 3 bids and document them to buy a $500 camera for local government. They weren't thinking "I am useless and craven", they were thinking "this is silly but I have to do it".
- nick49488171 9mo ago
  Screenshot of the top 3 results on Google shopping ought to do it
  - wongarsu 9mo ago
    And even if doesn't, writing five online shops to send you a written offer takes a couple minutes and results in the same or lower prices Procurement for such small items can be quick and sane. It's the larger items where rules tighten and procurement portals or bidding become mandated that are problematic
    - clort 9mo ago
      Nothing takes 'a couple minutes' when you have to sit down and research the five online shops, find if they are approachable, if they will deal with the restrictions of your purchasing department, find out how to submit a query. Many online shops just have a purchasing portal. Find the product, buy it here, pay for it and wait. So loosely I purchase items at my work from a budget that I am allocated in an organisation that is ultimately responsible to the UK government. I need to justify that the items I am ordering are reasonably priced, and the organisation would really really like to have the goods before any money goes out. That means they want to place an order, receive the goods and and invoice, and then pay the invoice. Many online shops don't want to deal with that. We have accounts set up with many companies, but not all. If I want to buy some reams of 160gsm A4 white card (for example, the other day), that whole process is going to take at least 10 minutes. Some of our suppliers don't sell exactly that. Is 240gsm ok? I've got to go back to the person who wants it (no btw, I had to go find some and take it to them for comparison). More esoteric items are going to take longer. What exactly do I want to order? So yeah, procurement is simple when you are at home with an amazon account. The items will be here tomorrow! edit: oh, I didn't mention the free delivery.. a box of white card doesn't get me free delivery. Is there something else I can add onto that? Ok, the order will have to wait..
boznz 9mo ago
I wrote a relevant article on this last year "On-Time and Under-Budget. Where some IT projects are Probably Going Wrong." [https://rodyne.com/?p=2074 https://rodyne.com/?p=2074]
- marcus_holmes 9mo ago
  > "Your system is NOT hard, it is you and your procurement procedures that are generally making it hard for small companies to help you, and it is you and your procurement systems and attitude that will likely make the project fail, be delayed or go over-budget." Quoted for truth. Well said.
wasmainiac 9mo ago
> This is pretty normal for government procurement, though Why accept the status que? How many working lives of tax revenue did this bs consume?
- marcus_holmes 9mo ago
  It's common to all large organisations. Because large organisations get like this; if everyone does their own procurement then money gets misused, wasted, and becomes uncontrolled. So they centralise procurement, and that disconnects it from the people who understand what they're buying, so they have to control it through process, and the process bloats until we get to this point. One of the many, many, arguments for not allowing organisations to get this big.
  - wasmainiac 9mo ago
    > Because large organisations get like this; Still it does not need to be this way. Large organisations used to actually get s** done generally in budget and on time. Now we can’t even do a simple tasks without mountains of paper work and cash. I know, my partner used to work in a related industry, it’s painful to hear their stories.
- rikroots 9mo ago
  Because corruption is a thing. Also: any government contract can be audited at any time by the National Audit Office, who have criminal prosecution powers if they find malfeasance in the procurement process. Also: being hauled in front of a Select Committee to answer questions about a given procurement is not fun. Also: politicians are always looking to ask questions that get their names in the paper. Follow the processes. Document everything. Make certain the winning bidder has all the relevant certificates and insurance covers in place before agreeing to anything. Leaving the Civil Service was one of the best work decisions I ever took.
azornathogron 9mo ago
I don't doubt you're correct about the incentives, but one point seems amiss... > If there's any, even the slightest, chance that buying from a business might one day reflect badly on the civil servant in the procurement office, then they won't buy from that business. You don't think that spending £4.1 million on this garbage might reflect badly on someone?
- marcus_holmes 9mo ago
  Nope. They followed the process, they bought from an approved, respected, supplier. The site meets the specification they drew up. There will be meeting notes from a few hundred meetings to document that everyone did their job properly. For us techies who know the tech (or even the law, in this case) this is a disaster. But for the folks in those meetings this is what they understood to be the brief. If enough of the public gets ahold of the story so that a politician has to get up on their hind legs and issue a statement, then harsh words might be had. But otherwise, this is business as usual.

OkayPhysicist 9mo ago

ISO9000 is, bar none, the most brilliant grift I have ever encountered. It's so simple, yet so elegant. Step 1: Come up with an incredibly easy to meet standard (because you don't want anybody abandoning the process because it's too much of a hassle) that sounds like a reasonable requirement on paper (to make it easy to pitch as a basic requirement of doing business). Say, "Have a plan for the things you do". Step 2: Add one additional requirement to your standard: "Prioritize Vendors that meet this standard". Step 3: Obscure the hell out of the standard, (to not make the grift too obvious) and stick it behind a paywall. Step 4: Franchise out the (nigh-impossible to fail) "approval" process to 3rd parties, who pay you for the privilege. Step 5: Your first few "standardized" companies put pressure on their vendors and customers to get certified, so they hire consultants, who in turn pay you, who tell them "Good job, you meet the standard. But do your vendors?". Step 6: Watch as the cash floods in. (Optional, Step 7): Once a bunch of major companies are certified, target governments to do your marketing push for you.

gerdesj 9mo ago
Please show me on the doll where ISO 9000 hurt you! I have been an MD for 25 years. ISO 9001 reg. since 2006. Its been a bit of a pain at times but it does concentrate the mind towards doing things right. We've never used consultants, we've always just read and followed the standards. What is your experience? PS During our last assessment, the assessor described a few recent AI written efforts they had come across. Laughable. PPS I've been doing this for over 25 years and I think that a quality based approach to running a company is a good idea ... you?
- Supermancho 9mo ago
  My father was a ISO9000 and ISO9001 certification consultant for over 10 years. He taught at Cal Poly Pamona, near the end of that era. This was my first exposure to using the familiar terms seen in RFCs like MUST MAY SHALL, etc. Ever tried to write a quality based document describing how to create an air filled, japanese oragami balloon? (step 3 is the first big hurdle, https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Origami-Balloon https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Origami-Balloon). That was his goto starter for ISO classes. > I've been doing this for over 25 years and I think that a quality based approach to running a company is a good idea ... you? ISO standards don't ensure this, since certification is only based on verifying documentation format. What the ISO processes do tend to do is create a small memo indicating that every dept should justify the work they are doing by writing it down and showing it to their boss. What that does to an organization is to produce a crapload of near-useless documentation and throw a large number of people into political hell. After that, the solution is always the same. They quickly move from everyone trying to coordinate down to a very small number of people (1-3) taking charge of moving dept to dept. Either the agents or the supervisors who are articulate enough to gloss over inconsistencies and gaps to form a coherent story, write the documentation. While this may lend well to shoring up some companies' internals, in the early 2000s, ISO certification consultancy was a lucrative gig. It was chased as a stamp to markup pricing, rather than a quality tool.
  - tverbeure 9mo ago
    I remember the backdated document signing parties at my previous company, the day before an ISO audit. So much fun!
- napaparts 9mo ago
  I think "concentrates the mind towards doing things right" is an accurate statement. On the other hand the parent is also correct that it is almost impossible to fail and the requirements are too broad to actually have much effect. The most helpful thing is you get the knowledge and experience of an auditor for a day. Other benefits are having someone make you write your processes down and making it easier to replace people, making sure there is a chart documenting the relationships between the people and to have some language about dealing with customer complaints and defective produce.
hluska 9mo ago
I’m reading the original tender and there is zero mention of ISO 9000. In fact, the tendering authority even specifically stated this opportunity was a good fit for SMEs. Where does all this talk of standards come from?
- Aeolun 9mo ago
  If this was a good fit for SME, and the price paid for the whole thing was 4M pounds, why didn’t any SME win the tender? Seriously, that’s the whole yearly turnover for most SME shops I ever worked at. And all of them could do a better job than this.
  - hkt 9mo ago
    That's possibly why: small businesses reliant on contracts that are, to them, disproportionately huge.. well, they die at the end of the contract. HMRC killed off an OpenStack based AWS competitor by replacing them, about ten years ago. Anchor clients can be a real hazard if an SME can't live without them. Sometimes it just isn't worth it.
- lwhi 9mo ago
  For government tenders, I do know that agencies need certification. Maybe not ISO2001 (which is a security standard that many corporate procurement processes require the supplier to have obtained when purchasing software), but Cyber Essentials / Cyber Essentials Plus is common.
  - rcxdude 9mo ago
    Cyber Essentials is a lot more of a PITA than 9001, it's very prescriptive in ways that cause all kinds of headaches without helping security.
    - henryaj 9mo ago
      I absolutely hated doing Cyber Essentials (Plus). Huge waste of time
pjmlp 9mo ago
Just like any other kind of certifications in the same domain. Want to use enterprise product XYZ? Need to have at least X amount of certified employees to reach the basic layer, additional certifications for the next layers. The kind of support tickets, documentation and trainings available depend on the certification levels, and by the way they have to be renewed every couple of years. However it is how the ball rolls in certain industries, and rebeling against it won't win anything, better switch jobs for those anti-certifications.

gerdesj 9mo ago

When was the last time you touted for this sort of business? Strictly speaking its ISO 9001 but we do the same as you and call it ISO 9000. You forgot 27001 and 14001.

Foobar8568 9mo ago
Iso that everyone is certified but nobody can truly explain or follow, ensuring the money is extracted to the same bunch of bidders.
marcus_holmes 9mo ago
About 20 years ago, so yes, I might be a little out of date ;) I've seen it happen time and again with startups, though. They have a great idea, perfect for a large business to use. They get a project manager or department manager excited about it, they even run a PoC successfully. And then they slap headfirst into the Procurement Wall and the whole project grinds to a halt. Three years between project approval and issuing a purchase order. And then 90 days between invoice and payment. Startups go bust waiting for these cogs to turn.

deaux 9mo ago

> If there's any, even the slightest, chance that buying from a business might one day reflect badly on the civil servant in the procurement office, then they won't buy from that business. This is an absurd statement that might as well come straight out of Yes Minister. Buying from PWC reflects badly on them already, let alone when their next scandal happens. Which is of course never far away [0]. I'm sure Fujitsu met similar "criteria" when selected for Horizon. How well that selection reflected on the procurement office.. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC#Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC#Litigation

marcus_holmes 9mo ago
You know Yes Minister was a documentary, right? ;) Buying from PWC reflects badly on them with us, because we know tech. It does not reflect badly with other civil servants, because PWC is a highly-respected organisation. It's very similar to "No-one got fired for buying from IBM", which was a cliche because it was true.
- bigfatkitten 9mo ago
  > because PWC is a highly-respected organisation. PwC are a well known band of crooks who always put their own enrichment well ahead of the public interest. They were banned entirely from bidding for Australian federal government contracts, because they misused privileged information on tax policy they received from one client (the government) to advise other clients on tax avoidance strategies. It was a symptom of systemic corruption that permeates their entire business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal
  - marcus_holmes 9mo ago
    In Australia, yeah.
    - bigfatkitten 9mo ago
      Only because that’s where they got caught.

woooooo 9mo ago

I think you're being a little unfair to the civil servant who has to follow the law regarding procurement. I once knew someone who had to solicit 3 bids and document them to buy a $500 camera for local government. They weren't thinking "I am useless and craven", they were thinking "this is silly but I have to do it".

nick49488171 9mo ago
Screenshot of the top 3 results on Google shopping ought to do it
- wongarsu 9mo ago
  And even if doesn't, writing five online shops to send you a written offer takes a couple minutes and results in the same or lower prices Procurement for such small items can be quick and sane. It's the larger items where rules tighten and procurement portals or bidding become mandated that are problematic
  - clort 9mo ago
    Nothing takes 'a couple minutes' when you have to sit down and research the five online shops, find if they are approachable, if they will deal with the restrictions of your purchasing department, find out how to submit a query. Many online shops just have a purchasing portal. Find the product, buy it here, pay for it and wait. So loosely I purchase items at my work from a budget that I am allocated in an organisation that is ultimately responsible to the UK government. I need to justify that the items I am ordering are reasonably priced, and the organisation would really really like to have the goods before any money goes out. That means they want to place an order, receive the goods and and invoice, and then pay the invoice. Many online shops don't want to deal with that. We have accounts set up with many companies, but not all. If I want to buy some reams of 160gsm A4 white card (for example, the other day), that whole process is going to take at least 10 minutes. Some of our suppliers don't sell exactly that. Is 240gsm ok? I've got to go back to the person who wants it (no btw, I had to go find some and take it to them for comparison). More esoteric items are going to take longer. What exactly do I want to order? So yeah, procurement is simple when you are at home with an amazon account. The items will be here tomorrow! edit: oh, I didn't mention the free delivery.. a box of white card doesn't get me free delivery. Is there something else I can add onto that? Ok, the order will have to wait..

boznz 9mo ago

I wrote a relevant article on this last year "On-Time and Under-Budget. Where some IT projects are Probably Going Wrong." [https://rodyne.com/?p=2074 https://rodyne.com/?p=2074]

marcus_holmes 9mo ago
> "Your system is NOT hard, it is you and your procurement procedures that are generally making it hard for small companies to help you, and it is you and your procurement systems and attitude that will likely make the project fail, be delayed or go over-budget." Quoted for truth. Well said.

wasmainiac 9mo ago

> This is pretty normal for government procurement, though Why accept the status que? How many working lives of tax revenue did this bs consume?

marcus_holmes 9mo ago
It's common to all large organisations. Because large organisations get like this; if everyone does their own procurement then money gets misused, wasted, and becomes uncontrolled. So they centralise procurement, and that disconnects it from the people who understand what they're buying, so they have to control it through process, and the process bloats until we get to this point. One of the many, many, arguments for not allowing organisations to get this big.
- wasmainiac 9mo ago
  > Because large organisations get like this; Still it does not need to be this way. Large organisations used to actually get s** done generally in budget and on time. Now we can’t even do a simple tasks without mountains of paper work and cash. I know, my partner used to work in a related industry, it’s painful to hear their stories.
rikroots 9mo ago
Because corruption is a thing. Also: any government contract can be audited at any time by the National Audit Office, who have criminal prosecution powers if they find malfeasance in the procurement process. Also: being hauled in front of a Select Committee to answer questions about a given procurement is not fun. Also: politicians are always looking to ask questions that get their names in the paper. Follow the processes. Document everything. Make certain the winning bidder has all the relevant certificates and insurance covers in place before agreeing to anything. Leaving the Civil Service was one of the best work decisions I ever took.

azornathogron 9mo ago

I don't doubt you're correct about the incentives, but one point seems amiss... > If there's any, even the slightest, chance that buying from a business might one day reflect badly on the civil servant in the procurement office, then they won't buy from that business. You don't think that spending £4.1 million on this garbage might reflect badly on someone?

marcus_holmes 9mo ago
Nope. They followed the process, they bought from an approved, respected, supplier. The site meets the specification they drew up. There will be meeting notes from a few hundred meetings to document that everyone did their job properly. For us techies who know the tech (or even the law, in this case) this is a disaster. But for the folks in those meetings this is what they understood to be the brief. If enough of the public gets ahold of the story so that a politician has to get up on their hind legs and issue a statement, then harsh words might be had. But otherwise, this is business as usual.