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I disagree that "government projects" are uniformly terribly executed between industries. I can't vouch for the American case, but New Zealand has a similar hi

by polemic 13y ago

I disagree that "government projects" are uniformly terribly executed between industries. I can't vouch for the American case, but New Zealand has a similar history of disastrous government-run IT projects - from a terrible teacher payroll system[1] to a police information system[2]. The IT community hear is desperately trying to stop the same mistake with a massive tax system overhaul[3]. Nevertheless, civil infrastructure projects appear to be very well executed. Recent major roading engineering projects like the Victoria motorway tunnel in Auckland were completed on time and under budget, for example. There has been an active discussion in this country about why the IT industry, in particular as manifested as major systems projects executed by foreign software companies, are such consistent clusterfucks. It's a big discussion and I won't go into many of the points raised here, but the issues is, IMHO, very much a "software industry" one, and not a "government" one. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novopay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novopay 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INCIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INCIS 3. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9261063/Row-deepens-over-IRD-tender http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9261063/Row-deepe...

eigenvector 13y ago
Most first-world governments have a century or more of experience in proper administration and project management of construction contracts. Designing, estimating, awarding and administering nine or ten figure construction projects is extremely complex but by and large, we know how to do it properly. Construction management is a serious discipline that is studied by civil engineers. It helps that construction methods don't change very often. Software technologies can become obsolete in a matter of months. I wouldn't start calling IT procurement a failure compared to civil infrastructure until software engineering has matured to the point that civil engineering has.
jacques_chester 13y ago
Non-software projects can go horribly badly too. I live in Perth, Australia. Almost every civil project there is blowing out like a balloon. Opera houses, hospitals, fancy developments. All going over budget and schedule. I was in Toronto a few days ago. What's on the cover of the newspaper? A civil project. A subway station running way over cost and time. Industrial and civil megaprojects routinely go way off course. Bad project management is universal, good project management is hard, any project of any serious size will require owner-commissioner organisations to not be useless idiots.
- polemic 13y ago
  Heh, you could probably blame many of Perth's failures on the role of the mining industry there. Engineers have to be flown in from as far away as New Zealand to make up for the shortage, a flush city administration happy to double-down on pet projects, and so on. But, obviously these are all anecdotal, I just know from my time at a large civil engineering company that the failure rate appeared to be very low. Part of that is excellent risk management, but also long-term client relationships, clear and long established success criteria and a distinct lack of political meddling (once the project is underway, at least).

by polemic 13y ago

eigenvector 13y ago

Most first-world governments have a century or more of experience in proper administration and project management of construction contracts. Designing, estimating, awarding and administering nine or ten figure construction projects is extremely complex but by and large, we know how to do it properly. Construction management is a serious discipline that is studied by civil engineers. It helps that construction methods don't change very often. Software technologies can become obsolete in a matter of months. I wouldn't start calling IT procurement a failure compared to civil infrastructure until software engineering has matured to the point that civil engineering has.

jacques_chester 13y ago

Non-software projects can go horribly badly too. I live in Perth, Australia. Almost every civil project there is blowing out like a balloon. Opera houses, hospitals, fancy developments. All going over budget and schedule. I was in Toronto a few days ago. What's on the cover of the newspaper? A civil project. A subway station running way over cost and time. Industrial and civil megaprojects routinely go way off course. Bad project management is universal, good project management is hard, any project of any serious size will require owner-commissioner organisations to not be useless idiots.

polemic 13y ago
Heh, you could probably blame many of Perth's failures on the role of the mining industry there. Engineers have to be flown in from as far away as New Zealand to make up for the shortage, a flush city administration happy to double-down on pet projects, and so on. But, obviously these are all anecdotal, I just know from my time at a large civil engineering company that the failure rate appeared to be very low. Part of that is excellent risk management, but also long-term client relationships, clear and long established success criteria and a distinct lack of political meddling (once the project is underway, at least).