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In Tech Buying, U.S. Still Stuck in Last Century

30 points by kjhughes 13y ago

tosseraccount 13y ago
Bureaucracy ( where success is measured in how confidentially a PowerPoint can be presented and how well you can say "synergy" with a straight face ) can't design and manage software creation. This is not going to change because why would the bureaucrats give power to the technocrats? It's not like they're going bankrupt. Incompetent middle mangers, management by crisis of the month, accountants and contractors running the systems would mean bankruptcy in the business world. In government, it's more muddle to manage and "a budget increase would fix the problem".
- mapgrep 13y ago
  We know this is true because there's no bureaucracy whatsoever at Microsoft, Google, Oracle, or Apple. Or PowerPoint!
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Bureaucracy ( where success is measured in how confidentially a PowerPoint can be presented and how well you can say "synergy" with a straight face ) can't design and manage software creation. How's that different from the private sector? Note, I'm not asking if they differ in other stuff -- I'm asking what they do different regarding what you described above as a characteristic of government bureaucracy. >Incompetent middle mangers, management by crisis of the month, accountants and contractors running the systems would mean bankruptcy in the business world. Well, not in the financial sector and "too big to fail" corporations either. Or how about Detroit and it's bailout?
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    The difference is the stakes to the employee. As a private-sector employee, unless you're committing fraud, you maximum consequence is termination. The government is different. Violating procurement rules is often a criminal act. So the civil servants build walls of process to protect themselves.
  - pcurve 13y ago
    "How's that different from the private sector?" It's not. Large private sector companies make just as poor purchasing and sourcing decisions as the government.
tbrownaw 13y ago
Longstanding laws intended to prevent corruption and conflict of interest [impose significant costs] Just because they have costs to them doesn't make them bad. But maybe there are more efficient ways to police corruption? Or maybe a small amount of corruption is acceptable, if the cost of preventing it would be greater than the amount lost? The Standish Group, an information technology firm, deemed just 4.6 percent of large-scale government contracting projects executed in the past decade to be successful. More than half were “challenged,” and about 40 percent simply “failed.” https://www.google.com/search?q=percent+of+software+projects+that+fail https://www.google.com/search?q=percent+of+software+projects... Reported numbers vary widely, but a 40% failure rate doesn't sound clearly worse (or better) than private industry. The 4.6% success rate sounds rather bad, but a quick look doesn't immediately show private industry numbers to compare to.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  Laws that were meant to provide fair competition now act as a barrier to entry for companies that don't cater specifically to the government. This leads to fewer bids from the same companies. Those companies are happy to keep the anti-corruption laws in place. They also bias towards fewer, larger purchases, which is a recipe for failure for something like logistics software.

30 points by kjhughes 13y ago

Bureaucracy ( where success is measured in how confidentially a PowerPoint can be presented and how well you can say "synergy" with a straight face ) can't design and manage software creation. This is not going to change because why would the bureaucrats give power to the technocrats? It's not like they're going bankrupt. Incompetent middle mangers, management by crisis of the month, accountants and contractors running the systems would mean bankruptcy in the business world. In government, it's more muddle to manage and "a budget increase would fix the problem".

mapgrep 13y ago
We know this is true because there's no bureaucracy whatsoever at Microsoft, Google, Oracle, or Apple. Or PowerPoint!
coldtea 13y ago
>Bureaucracy ( where success is measured in how confidentially a PowerPoint can be presented and how well you can say "synergy" with a straight face ) can't design and manage software creation. How's that different from the private sector? Note, I'm not asking if they differ in other stuff -- I'm asking what they do different regarding what you described above as a characteristic of government bureaucracy. >Incompetent middle mangers, management by crisis of the month, accountants and contractors running the systems would mean bankruptcy in the business world. Well, not in the financial sector and "too big to fail" corporations either. Or how about Detroit and it's bailout?
- Spooky23 13y ago
  The difference is the stakes to the employee. As a private-sector employee, unless you're committing fraud, you maximum consequence is termination. The government is different. Violating procurement rules is often a criminal act. So the civil servants build walls of process to protect themselves.
- pcurve 13y ago
  "How's that different from the private sector?" It's not. Large private sector companies make just as poor purchasing and sourcing decisions as the government.

tbrownaw 13y ago

Longstanding laws intended to prevent corruption and conflict of interest [impose significant costs] Just because they have costs to them doesn't make them bad. But maybe there are more efficient ways to police corruption? Or maybe a small amount of corruption is acceptable, if the cost of preventing it would be greater than the amount lost? The Standish Group, an information technology firm, deemed just 4.6 percent of large-scale government contracting projects executed in the past decade to be successful. More than half were “challenged,” and about 40 percent simply “failed.” https://www.google.com/search?q=percent+of+software+projects+that+fail https://www.google.com/search?q=percent+of+software+projects... Reported numbers vary widely, but a 40% failure rate doesn't sound clearly worse (or better) than private industry. The 4.6% success rate sounds rather bad, but a quick look doesn't immediately show private industry numbers to compare to.

aidenn0 13y ago
Laws that were meant to provide fair competition now act as a barrier to entry for companies that don't cater specifically to the government. This leads to fewer bids from the same companies. Those companies are happy to keep the anti-corruption laws in place. They also bias towards fewer, larger purchases, which is a recipe for failure for something like logistics software.