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As a Canadian I wonder, with all the American technology giants, why was this project outsourced to Canada? If the idea was that outsourcing would lower cost, w

As a Canadian I wonder, with all the American technology giants, why was this project outsourced to Canada? If the idea was that outsourcing would lower cost, why were the contracts no-bid?

bane 13y ago
CGI Federal is a big-ish Fed contractor in the U.S. and, though a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, for various legal reasons is owned and operated as an American firm. It performs quite a bit of tech work for the U.S. government, work won in generally open competition. Because the U.S. Fed space is such a big market, it's not unusual to have locally owned subsidiaries in the mix e.g. BAE, Quinetiq, etc. all have similar groups. My understanding is that CGI was already handling various health care related work and was selected to do the work without a proper competitive bidding process. But having seen these processes, they definitely wouldn't have resolved the kinds of widescale technical issues.
- growupkids 13y ago
  And the federal government is a remarkably ignorant customer. They don't know what they are asking for, meddle in the details adding in things they think they need, and don't really know what to pay but often think lower=better. Top that off with insane complex procurement rules that require the work be divided up to meet social goals: x% to small biz, y% to 8a, z% to hub zone and so on and you have a guaranteed mess. Even if there was a highly qualified company to do the work, the FAR requires it be divided up. Top that off with a silly idea that a company needs to have past performance doing something that's never been done before, and well you end up with selection committees picking the "safe" (I.e. Big firm) choice. And you're guaranteed to get a firm that doesn't know how to innovate, they just imitate and throw money, hardware and sub contractors at the problem.
- hga 13y ago
  Addressing you and growupkids, CGI Federal is responsible for the Medicare.gov site, which I can attest to being a bit clunky but otherwise working well for claims and Part D selection and application (the prescription drug benefit program). They were on a list of already vetted vendors, plus if "a proper competitive bidding process" had been done it could easily be hung up in the courts by losers lawsuits. As you note, and as I've been noting, given the structure and processes of the project, especially it being run by political and bureaucratic types from the White House on down to CMS (the integrator prior to getting replaced in late October), there's no way they and the other contractors could have possibly succeeded, especially with change orders continuing though the week before launch. Heck, the integration tests CMS ran in the last week or two before the launch told them it couldn't possibly work, but it was launched anyway....
  - hga 13y ago
    Per this article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/tension-and-woes-before-health-website-crash.html?hpw&rref= http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/tension-and-wo... there were three other bidders: IBM, QSSI and Computer Sciences Corporation. All I can say is thank god CSC wasn't chosen! And to the extent CGI Federal retained some of the qualities of the civilian part of AMS the company bought, again, not an obvious bad move (I worked for a short time in a national security part of AMS, which went to the American firm CACI because foreigners couldn't own it).

As a Canadian I wonder, with all the American technology giants, why was this project outsourced to Canada? If the idea was that outsourcing would lower cost, why were the contracts no-bid?

bane 13y ago

CGI Federal is a big-ish Fed contractor in the U.S. and, though a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, for various legal reasons is owned and operated as an American firm. It performs quite a bit of tech work for the U.S. government, work won in generally open competition. Because the U.S. Fed space is such a big market, it's not unusual to have locally owned subsidiaries in the mix e.g. BAE, Quinetiq, etc. all have similar groups. My understanding is that CGI was already handling various health care related work and was selected to do the work without a proper competitive bidding process. But having seen these processes, they definitely wouldn't have resolved the kinds of widescale technical issues.

growupkids 13y ago
And the federal government is a remarkably ignorant customer. They don't know what they are asking for, meddle in the details adding in things they think they need, and don't really know what to pay but often think lower=better. Top that off with insane complex procurement rules that require the work be divided up to meet social goals: x% to small biz, y% to 8a, z% to hub zone and so on and you have a guaranteed mess. Even if there was a highly qualified company to do the work, the FAR requires it be divided up. Top that off with a silly idea that a company needs to have past performance doing something that's never been done before, and well you end up with selection committees picking the "safe" (I.e. Big firm) choice. And you're guaranteed to get a firm that doesn't know how to innovate, they just imitate and throw money, hardware and sub contractors at the problem.
hga 13y ago
Addressing you and growupkids, CGI Federal is responsible for the Medicare.gov site, which I can attest to being a bit clunky but otherwise working well for claims and Part D selection and application (the prescription drug benefit program). They were on a list of already vetted vendors, plus if "a proper competitive bidding process" had been done it could easily be hung up in the courts by losers lawsuits. As you note, and as I've been noting, given the structure and processes of the project, especially it being run by political and bureaucratic types from the White House on down to CMS (the integrator prior to getting replaced in late October), there's no way they and the other contractors could have possibly succeeded, especially with change orders continuing though the week before launch. Heck, the integration tests CMS ran in the last week or two before the launch told them it couldn't possibly work, but it was launched anyway....
- hga 13y ago
  Per this article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/tension-and-woes-before-health-website-crash.html?hpw&rref= http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/tension-and-wo... there were three other bidders: IBM, QSSI and Computer Sciences Corporation. All I can say is thank god CSC wasn't chosen! And to the extent CGI Federal retained some of the qualities of the civilian part of AMS the company bought, again, not an obvious bad move (I worked for a short time in a national security part of AMS, which went to the American firm CACI because foreigners couldn't own it).