4 ms·

You'd have leaner, smarter firms that could actually deliver something getting involved if the bidding process wasn't so obtuse and opaque. When I was consulti

You'd have leaner, smarter firms that could actually deliver something getting involved if the bidding process wasn't so obtuse and opaque. When I was consulting, I responded to a few RFP's but they were always either (a) obviously tailored to the capabilities of a single firm so there was no way to win unless you were them or (b) so ridiculously vague or out of this world impossible ("We need you to basically rewrite GitHub for us and the budget is $30k") that it wasn't even worth the time. Even now where I work, we have to deal with government agencies literally telling us they can't tell us any requirements at all because that would give us an advantage over other firms somehow. We just have to pitch our product to them and hope that it fits, even though at this point in our development cycle we could (and really, want to) make adjustments, feature additions, etc. to fit them if we were allowed to. Government contracting in IT, from my point of view, is nearly 99% about "playing the game" and about 1% actually delivering something. Especially since it seems that even if you fail spectacularly, you still get paid (possibly paid even more to fix your stupidity).

dm2 12y ago
That's exactly right. The staff organizing the project for the government gets advice (bad advice) on the technologies that it should use from approved development firms then make using that technology a strict requirement. These firms are some of the few that have developers that use that technology and win the bid, everybody except the hired firm loses. Any small competent development team can built almost anything imaginable with 6 years of time, proper funding, and without unnecessary restrictions. $300 million to develop anything is insane. I can't imagine what happens when the check is cut, "let's hire 100 programmers, 10 managers, 5 accountants, 10 support staff and they'll figure it out." Maybe there needs to be some kind of "insurance" company that oversees the project and has to pay back a portion of the money if the project fails. I'm not sure if that's reasonable, just an idea. If the project starts going off-track then they start letting people go and find competent replacements. Plan projects out, have milestones, goals, backup plans. If they spend 6 years and $300 million dollars on a computer system and fail then they were just winging it from the beginning. The managers responsible should be identified and go on a blacklist. Right now it's either "oh well, hopefully we'll do better next time".
- untog 12y ago
  Startups certainly don't help themselves in this regard, though. The sheer number that shut down, get acquired etc. means that I don't totally blame government bodies that choose large, established companies.
  - dm2 12y ago
    Maybe there is an opportunity for a private company to be the middle-man between government projects and small competent development teams. To ensure they meet the requirements and to provide real advice to the government agencies that need projects built.
    - ebiester 12y ago
      That's what's really happening behind the scenes with 99% of this stuff. You have a prime contractor that then subcontracts the actual work to small companies and then the prime just handles project management and the government interface. However, this ends up causing problems with the motivations of the individual actors not lining up.
    - mox1 12y ago
      Your sort of talking about FFRDC's. Part of their role as a non-profit , non-government agency is to "Consult" with the government. I worked at one for a while, we were held in very high regard amongst the Government. When they doled out new contracts they basically asked us our opinion for which company to choose, based on past performance. We would also review other contractors work and give it the thumbs up / thumbs down. This was on a much smaller scale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federally_funded_research_and_development_centers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federally_funded_resear...
danielweber 12y ago
I've frequently encountered it as "let's spend a lot of money on making sure we don't waste any money."
- beat 12y ago
  Exactly. My interpretation of it is "Appearance of risk is more important than actual risk". Letting a small team run loose with unproven technologies appears risky. Using big names with expensive "enterprise solutions" appears low-risk. But really, those expensive tools and complex processes create whole new categories of risk.
- Glide 12y ago
  That's brilliant. How much staff do they need to make sure everything is okay? Oh you have a database? Well you need a DBA on this. Security? Who is making sure the application is secure? Where is the security officer? Etc. etc. Many of the boxes can only be checked by having more people.
- cafard 12y ago
  My impression working for a government contractor years ago was that the government had great systems for getting the best price on typewriters, and that these systems more or less guaranteed the purchase of obsolescent computer technology.
mseebach 12y ago
The way the UK government is starting to do things is to insource project management and then run tenders for smaller components, explicitly shaped so smaller firms have a chance of competing. This seems like a sane approach.
ProAm 12y ago
> is nearly 99% about "playing the game" and about 1% actually delivering something. Especially since it seems that even if you fail spectacularly, you still get paid (possibly paid even more to fix your stupidity). This is true for almost all business, especially consulting work.
pc86 12y ago
I worked for a company who provided a SaaS to a few private entities but also some very large state agencies, including an entire branch of the government. I remember sitting in a meeting with my boss and the owner of the company, while we sat on the phone with someone from the procurement department of another agency while they crafted the bid to only allow us to compete. It was disgusting and they did nothing to hide it. The state employee (who knew the company owner socially) even mentioned the competition by name, along the lines of "if we require ______ then ______ won't be able to bid, right?"
- justinpaulson 12y ago
  So you immediately reported this to other government officials?
  - dm2 12y ago
    Whistleblower protection hasn't been around for very long, and I'm not sure how it applies to private companies. The "official" process is likely a very difficult set of hoops to jump through and you're not going to be promoted in that company more than likely, and fired at the first opportunity.
    - pc86 12y ago
      This was many years ago and it was state not federal. I asked an attorney friend if I had any obligation to do anything (as well as if I would have any protection if I did) and was told that if I needed the job to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, I did and this was my first professional job out of college. Morally I made the wrong call by not speaking up even though truthfully I don't know if what happened was actually illegal at the time or not.
- beering 12y ago
  Competitors can bid, but will have generally worse answers for the specially crafted requirements. The competitors can either say "no, we don't do that" and hope that the committee doesn't mind, say "yes, we could do that" and see if the agency will pay extra for that special req, or say "yes, we do that" and build out that feature if they win the bid.
bmelton 12y ago
> government agencies literally telling us they can't tell us any requirements at all because that would give us an advantage over other firms somehow. To be fair, what that really means is that the contractors that they want to win already know the requirements, and that's the closest way they can get to impartially telling you to fuck off. Generally, that response connotes that the bid is tailored to contractors already doing work with the agency in question, who are not only intimately aware of the request for proposal, but likely had a hand in its creation.
tootie 12y ago
This happens in the private sector too. Sometimes consultants are hired to write the RFPs which, suprise surprise, they tend to win.
incision 12y ago
>'(a) obviously tailored to the capabilities of a single firm so there was no way to win unless you were them' For what it's worth, this isn't necessarily corruption at work. As I've related on HN before, the procurement arms of these agencies are often woefully unequipped for handling anything IT related. It's typically a process made for sourcing completely interchangeable, relatively simple supplies or services seeing terribly complex software or systems dumped into them - not 'shoe-horned' as that would imply an attempt at fitting - simply dumped so that requirements spill on the floor and everything gets jumbled up onto the existing conventions. Given that, providing an agnostic SOW is a great way to end up with stuck with a lowball bid which makes the most self-serving, word-splitting assumptions possible to stick you with something utterly apart from what you need. >'(b) so ridiculously vague or out of this world impossible ("We need you to basically rewrite GitHub for us and the budget is $30k") that it wasn't even worth the time.' Related to what I said above - these requirements are not as hard and fast as they might seem. Writing a defensively worded response, getting your foot in the door to talk with the people who actual request and implement is not a terrible way to start doing real work. >'Even now where I work, we have to deal with government agencies literally telling us they can't tell us any requirements at all because that would give us an advantage over other firms somehow.' Right. It's not unlike any sort of courtship, business or otherwise. You can't just ask outright, you have to make friends and hear the information gush over lunch or volunteer some no-fee consulting and take notes. Big vendors and VARs have people who do this nearly full-time so it's certainly much harder for a small company, but not impossible. >'We just have to pitch our product to them and hope that it fits, even though at this point in our development cycle we could (and really, want to) make adjustments, feature additions, etc. to fit them if we were allowed to.' Something to be aware of, when dealing with a Lockheed terms like 'adjustments, feature additions' are euphemisms for 'one million dollars'. If you're pitching these possibilities and expecting/willing to make them to earn the business then it might pay to be explicit about it.

dm2 12y ago

That's exactly right. The staff organizing the project for the government gets advice (bad advice) on the technologies that it should use from approved development firms then make using that technology a strict requirement. These firms are some of the few that have developers that use that technology and win the bid, everybody except the hired firm loses. Any small competent development team can built almost anything imaginable with 6 years of time, proper funding, and without unnecessary restrictions. $300 million to develop anything is insane. I can't imagine what happens when the check is cut, "let's hire 100 programmers, 10 managers, 5 accountants, 10 support staff and they'll figure it out." Maybe there needs to be some kind of "insurance" company that oversees the project and has to pay back a portion of the money if the project fails. I'm not sure if that's reasonable, just an idea. If the project starts going off-track then they start letting people go and find competent replacements. Plan projects out, have milestones, goals, backup plans. If they spend 6 years and $300 million dollars on a computer system and fail then they were just winging it from the beginning. The managers responsible should be identified and go on a blacklist. Right now it's either "oh well, hopefully we'll do better next time".

untog 12y ago
Startups certainly don't help themselves in this regard, though. The sheer number that shut down, get acquired etc. means that I don't totally blame government bodies that choose large, established companies.
- dm2 12y ago
  Maybe there is an opportunity for a private company to be the middle-man between government projects and small competent development teams. To ensure they meet the requirements and to provide real advice to the government agencies that need projects built.
  - ebiester 12y ago
    That's what's really happening behind the scenes with 99% of this stuff. You have a prime contractor that then subcontracts the actual work to small companies and then the prime just handles project management and the government interface. However, this ends up causing problems with the motivations of the individual actors not lining up.
  - mox1 12y ago
    Your sort of talking about FFRDC's. Part of their role as a non-profit , non-government agency is to "Consult" with the government. I worked at one for a while, we were held in very high regard amongst the Government. When they doled out new contracts they basically asked us our opinion for which company to choose, based on past performance. We would also review other contractors work and give it the thumbs up / thumbs down. This was on a much smaller scale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federally_funded_research_and_development_centers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federally_funded_resear...

danielweber 12y ago

I've frequently encountered it as "let's spend a lot of money on making sure we don't waste any money."

beat 12y ago
Exactly. My interpretation of it is "Appearance of risk is more important than actual risk". Letting a small team run loose with unproven technologies appears risky. Using big names with expensive "enterprise solutions" appears low-risk. But really, those expensive tools and complex processes create whole new categories of risk.
Glide 12y ago
That's brilliant. How much staff do they need to make sure everything is okay? Oh you have a database? Well you need a DBA on this. Security? Who is making sure the application is secure? Where is the security officer? Etc. etc. Many of the boxes can only be checked by having more people.
cafard 12y ago
My impression working for a government contractor years ago was that the government had great systems for getting the best price on typewriters, and that these systems more or less guaranteed the purchase of obsolescent computer technology.

mseebach 12y ago

The way the UK government is starting to do things is to insource project management and then run tenders for smaller components, explicitly shaped so smaller firms have a chance of competing. This seems like a sane approach.

ProAm 12y ago

> is nearly 99% about "playing the game" and about 1% actually delivering something. Especially since it seems that even if you fail spectacularly, you still get paid (possibly paid even more to fix your stupidity). This is true for almost all business, especially consulting work.

pc86 12y ago

I worked for a company who provided a SaaS to a few private entities but also some very large state agencies, including an entire branch of the government. I remember sitting in a meeting with my boss and the owner of the company, while we sat on the phone with someone from the procurement department of another agency while they crafted the bid to only allow us to compete. It was disgusting and they did nothing to hide it. The state employee (who knew the company owner socially) even mentioned the competition by name, along the lines of "if we require ______ then ______ won't be able to bid, right?"

justinpaulson 12y ago
So you immediately reported this to other government officials?
- dm2 12y ago
  Whistleblower protection hasn't been around for very long, and I'm not sure how it applies to private companies. The "official" process is likely a very difficult set of hoops to jump through and you're not going to be promoted in that company more than likely, and fired at the first opportunity.
  - pc86 12y ago
    This was many years ago and it was state not federal. I asked an attorney friend if I had any obligation to do anything (as well as if I would have any protection if I did) and was told that if I needed the job to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, I did and this was my first professional job out of college. Morally I made the wrong call by not speaking up even though truthfully I don't know if what happened was actually illegal at the time or not.
beering 12y ago
Competitors can bid, but will have generally worse answers for the specially crafted requirements. The competitors can either say "no, we don't do that" and hope that the committee doesn't mind, say "yes, we could do that" and see if the agency will pay extra for that special req, or say "yes, we do that" and build out that feature if they win the bid.

bmelton 12y ago

> government agencies literally telling us they can't tell us any requirements at all because that would give us an advantage over other firms somehow. To be fair, what that really means is that the contractors that they want to win already know the requirements, and that's the closest way they can get to impartially telling you to fuck off. Generally, that response connotes that the bid is tailored to contractors already doing work with the agency in question, who are not only intimately aware of the request for proposal, but likely had a hand in its creation.

tootie 12y ago

This happens in the private sector too. Sometimes consultants are hired to write the RFPs which, suprise surprise, they tend to win.

incision 12y ago

>'(a) obviously tailored to the capabilities of a single firm so there was no way to win unless you were them' For what it's worth, this isn't necessarily corruption at work. As I've related on HN before, the procurement arms of these agencies are often woefully unequipped for handling anything IT related. It's typically a process made for sourcing completely interchangeable, relatively simple supplies or services seeing terribly complex software or systems dumped into them - not 'shoe-horned' as that would imply an attempt at fitting - simply dumped so that requirements spill on the floor and everything gets jumbled up onto the existing conventions. Given that, providing an agnostic SOW is a great way to end up with stuck with a lowball bid which makes the most self-serving, word-splitting assumptions possible to stick you with something utterly apart from what you need. >'(b) so ridiculously vague or out of this world impossible ("We need you to basically rewrite GitHub for us and the budget is $30k") that it wasn't even worth the time.' Related to what I said above - these requirements are not as hard and fast as they might seem. Writing a defensively worded response, getting your foot in the door to talk with the people who actual request and implement is not a terrible way to start doing real work. >'Even now where I work, we have to deal with government agencies literally telling us they can't tell us any requirements at all because that would give us an advantage over other firms somehow.' Right. It's not unlike any sort of courtship, business or otherwise. You can't just ask outright, you have to make friends and hear the information gush over lunch or volunteer some no-fee consulting and take notes. Big vendors and VARs have people who do this nearly full-time so it's certainly much harder for a small company, but not impossible. >'We just have to pitch our product to them and hope that it fits, even though at this point in our development cycle we could (and really, want to) make adjustments, feature additions, etc. to fit them if we were allowed to.' Something to be aware of, when dealing with a Lockheed terms like 'adjustments, feature additions' are euphemisms for 'one million dollars'. If you're pitching these possibilities and expecting/willing to make them to earn the business then it might pay to be explicit about it.