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> If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems.

by ef4 13y ago

> If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems. Each of those companies passed multiple rounds of competitive bidding, too. Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. It's the government that's responsible for spending that money well, and it's the government that's failing at it. > The solution is easy... but that's politically dicey. Which is another way of saying the solution is not easy.

crazy1van 13y ago
> Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. Yes. These contracts essentially amount to paying a company to work on a problem. There's no incentive for the contractor to finish. When they finish, the money stops. The most profitable activity is to drag the project out as long as possible until the government kills it.
acdha 13y ago
> Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. It's the government that's responsible for spending that money well, and it's the government that's failing at it. This is true but misses the point that the government really needs to develop in house talent. If you looked at every one of those contracts, I'm sure you'd find that part of the work to be performed was project management, design, etc. but the problem is frequently that the government isn't allowed to hire people who can evaluate the options. It's quite easy to make a project fail by giving the client exactly what they asked for… > > The solution is easy... but that's politically dicey. > Which is another way of saying the solution is not easy. True – we're basically debating semantics but I would argue that the solution to this problem is easy but that's because the real problem is something else. As a country we tend to waste a lot of time talking about problems which are the product of other problems we've chosen not to deal with.

by ef4 13y ago

crazy1van 13y ago

> Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. Yes. These contracts essentially amount to paying a company to work on a problem. There's no incentive for the contractor to finish. When they finish, the money stops. The most profitable activity is to drag the project out as long as possible until the government kills it.

acdha 13y ago

> Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. It's the government that's responsible for spending that money well, and it's the government that's failing at it. This is true but misses the point that the government really needs to develop in house talent. If you looked at every one of those contracts, I'm sure you'd find that part of the work to be performed was project management, design, etc. but the problem is frequently that the government isn't allowed to hire people who can evaluate the options. It's quite easy to make a project fail by giving the client exactly what they asked for… > > The solution is easy... but that's politically dicey. > Which is another way of saying the solution is not easy. True – we're basically debating semantics but I would argue that the solution to this problem is easy but that's because the real problem is something else. As a country we tend to waste a lot of time talking about problems which are the product of other problems we've chosen not to deal with.