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I say make it a documentary, but make it as layman as possible so that the rest of America can understand just how fucked up it was. Use it as an opportunity t

by vinhboy 12y ago

I say make it a documentary, but make it as layman as possible so that the rest of America can understand just how fucked up it was. Use it as an opportunity to shame the government into action.

dublinben 12y ago
Don't overlook the fact that the system was actually built by private contractors. A small in-house team of developers (like they've got now) probably would have done a better job.
- watwut 12y ago
  That is not sure. Overall management would not magically get better if the project would be done by small in-house team of developers. The same management that allowed contractor failure would allow in-house failure and the same management that hired incapable contractor would put together incapable in-house team. Basically, the same bad decision makers would made the same bad decisions. You can blame the team for bad code, but you can not blame them for such a huge failure of the whole project.
  - lifeisstillgood 12y ago
    My favourite quote on this subject comes from Tom DeMarco: Risk Management - Project Management for grown ups
  - michaelt 12y ago
    The same management that allowed contractor failure would allow in-house failure and the same management that hired incapable contractor would put together incapable in-house team. A lot of outsourcing contacts basically mean that if the contractors deliver late, the outsourcing company gets paid extra (more hours needed to finish it!) and if they deliver a buggy product, they get paid extra (more hours needed to fix it!). So scope creep, avoidable complexity and using bad tools are good for the outsourcing company. For an in house team who do their own maintenance, the same things mean embarrassment, late nights, and possibly getting fired. So scope creep and avoidable complexity are bad for the in-house team. Of course, if you don't have enough work to justify keeping the in house team around after the project is done, they might amount to the same thing.
    - watwut 12y ago
      According to accounts at the time, the original team on this project was working late nights long before the failed September deadline. Their attempts to inform government that they will not make it were cut with "failure is not an option". Are you saying that this situation would be impossible with in-house team? There were reports of contractor fighting government over scope, are you saying that in-house team would win that fight? There was no one in government side with power to say "no" to features and with power to prioritize. Are you saying that such political power would magically appear in someone if they would use in-house team? There were reports of stressed governments people coming to contractor site in person all of sudden and forcing developers to show them not done yet hopefully cool features (nope not login, none of them cared about sign up and load problems). I am not making this up. Are you saying that the same geniuses would left in-house team alone? There was no one officially responsible for integration of parts done by various companies and integration testing. Would the same management put aside time and resources for that work if the companies would be replaced by in-house teams? Well, maybe a little on this one, but I doubt they would put aside enough. Plenty of outsourcing contracts have set price or deadlines and penalties for breaking them. Plenty of them are not paid on hourly fee basis. At least one of contracted companies has history of failures under their belt, so they are hardly innocent in the whole failure. That does not make government management more sound. It just makes them equally guilty at worst. "For an in house team who do their own maintenance, the same things mean embarrassment, late nights, and possibly getting fired. So scope creep and avoidable complexity are bad for the in-house team." There are few problems with this assertion: * Scope creep is problem beyond the tech team. Scope creep happens to in-house teams of private companies as often as it happen to contractors. That one can be solved only someone with real political decision making power cooperates. * In-house team does not get much embarrassment after failed deadline and firings usually does not happen after them. The thing is, if the management is competent, management knows the deadline will be failed in advance and have a plan for that. Deadlines are failed for various reasons overly optimistic estimates being the primary one. * Most importantly, good management does not fire people after they failed important deadline due to laziness. Good management replaces lazy incapable people long before and does not assign mission critical tasks to unproven people. Management that ignores problems and then comes in all guns blazing after predictable failure is bound to build quite horrible in-house teams. Managing contractors is somewhat different then managing in-house team, but both require sound management to succeed. You might be somewhat better at managing one vs another, but you are unlikely to be great in managing in-house team while being total failure in managing contractors.
- GovContractor 12y ago
  ^Not true at all Not in the government. There is little to no pressure to get rid of underperforming employees because you can always just dig a little deeper in to tax payer pockets and get more people. And any time you happen to hit the jack pot and higher a good engineer they end up leaving after a year to two because it’s imposable to get anything done in the government. I have been working in the government as a software engineer as a contractor imbedded in a government agency for almost 3 years now. The stories of brain drain in the government due to the untenable working conditions are true. When I was first hired I was told that I got the job but was then strung along for 2 months before I got my start date. When I finally showed up on day one multiple people commented on how fast they were able to push me through the system... After starting I was told I could not have any internet accesses on my development machine and that I would have to use a laptop next to me that is connected to a government machine. That laptops internet connection was totally useless with every other page and virtually all downloads blocked. If I do manage to get a download to go through I have to burn it to a disk take it up 2 flights of stairs scan it for virus before transferring to my stand-alone dev machine. If I can't downloaded it I have to wait until lunch drive 25 mins home download the file, burn it, drive back, scan, copy back to machine. I fully understand that such security measures might be need for the most sensitive DoD projects but the stuff I work on is in no way sensitive. When I need to order something even small things the process can take months and months. We had to order some projector bulbs for a very specialized projector which was only produced by the company that made the projector. The procurement process took 10 months and we were not allowed to buy the bulbs from the manufacture we had to buy them from a 3rd party at a steep markup. I have stayed this long because I am being compansated well (a little better then I could do in the Valley after taking into account cost of living) but its not worth it. The system is broken and I am burned out.
  - eglover 12y ago
    Careful. HN likes to downvote anything that's not liberal. Real world be damned.

by vinhboy 12y ago

I say make it a documentary, but make it as layman as possible so that the rest of America can understand just how fucked up it was. Use it as an opportunity to shame the government into action.

dublinben 12y ago

Don't overlook the fact that the system was actually built by private contractors. A small in-house team of developers (like they've got now) probably would have done a better job.

watwut 12y ago
That is not sure. Overall management would not magically get better if the project would be done by small in-house team of developers. The same management that allowed contractor failure would allow in-house failure and the same management that hired incapable contractor would put together incapable in-house team. Basically, the same bad decision makers would made the same bad decisions. You can blame the team for bad code, but you can not blame them for such a huge failure of the whole project.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  My favourite quote on this subject comes from Tom DeMarco: Risk Management - Project Management for grown ups
- michaelt 12y ago
  The same management that allowed contractor failure would allow in-house failure and the same management that hired incapable contractor would put together incapable in-house team. A lot of outsourcing contacts basically mean that if the contractors deliver late, the outsourcing company gets paid extra (more hours needed to finish it!) and if they deliver a buggy product, they get paid extra (more hours needed to fix it!). So scope creep, avoidable complexity and using bad tools are good for the outsourcing company. For an in house team who do their own maintenance, the same things mean embarrassment, late nights, and possibly getting fired. So scope creep and avoidable complexity are bad for the in-house team. Of course, if you don't have enough work to justify keeping the in house team around after the project is done, they might amount to the same thing.
  - watwut 12y ago
    According to accounts at the time, the original team on this project was working late nights long before the failed September deadline. Their attempts to inform government that they will not make it were cut with "failure is not an option". Are you saying that this situation would be impossible with in-house team? There were reports of contractor fighting government over scope, are you saying that in-house team would win that fight? There was no one in government side with power to say "no" to features and with power to prioritize. Are you saying that such political power would magically appear in someone if they would use in-house team? There were reports of stressed governments people coming to contractor site in person all of sudden and forcing developers to show them not done yet hopefully cool features (nope not login, none of them cared about sign up and load problems). I am not making this up. Are you saying that the same geniuses would left in-house team alone? There was no one officially responsible for integration of parts done by various companies and integration testing. Would the same management put aside time and resources for that work if the companies would be replaced by in-house teams? Well, maybe a little on this one, but I doubt they would put aside enough. Plenty of outsourcing contracts have set price or deadlines and penalties for breaking them. Plenty of them are not paid on hourly fee basis. At least one of contracted companies has history of failures under their belt, so they are hardly innocent in the whole failure. That does not make government management more sound. It just makes them equally guilty at worst. "For an in house team who do their own maintenance, the same things mean embarrassment, late nights, and possibly getting fired. So scope creep and avoidable complexity are bad for the in-house team." There are few problems with this assertion: * Scope creep is problem beyond the tech team. Scope creep happens to in-house teams of private companies as often as it happen to contractors. That one can be solved only someone with real political decision making power cooperates. * In-house team does not get much embarrassment after failed deadline and firings usually does not happen after them. The thing is, if the management is competent, management knows the deadline will be failed in advance and have a plan for that. Deadlines are failed for various reasons overly optimistic estimates being the primary one. * Most importantly, good management does not fire people after they failed important deadline due to laziness. Good management replaces lazy incapable people long before and does not assign mission critical tasks to unproven people. Management that ignores problems and then comes in all guns blazing after predictable failure is bound to build quite horrible in-house teams. Managing contractors is somewhat different then managing in-house team, but both require sound management to succeed. You might be somewhat better at managing one vs another, but you are unlikely to be great in managing in-house team while being total failure in managing contractors.
GovContractor 12y ago
^Not true at all Not in the government. There is little to no pressure to get rid of underperforming employees because you can always just dig a little deeper in to tax payer pockets and get more people. And any time you happen to hit the jack pot and higher a good engineer they end up leaving after a year to two because it’s imposable to get anything done in the government. I have been working in the government as a software engineer as a contractor imbedded in a government agency for almost 3 years now. The stories of brain drain in the government due to the untenable working conditions are true. When I was first hired I was told that I got the job but was then strung along for 2 months before I got my start date. When I finally showed up on day one multiple people commented on how fast they were able to push me through the system... After starting I was told I could not have any internet accesses on my development machine and that I would have to use a laptop next to me that is connected to a government machine. That laptops internet connection was totally useless with every other page and virtually all downloads blocked. If I do manage to get a download to go through I have to burn it to a disk take it up 2 flights of stairs scan it for virus before transferring to my stand-alone dev machine. If I can't downloaded it I have to wait until lunch drive 25 mins home download the file, burn it, drive back, scan, copy back to machine. I fully understand that such security measures might be need for the most sensitive DoD projects but the stuff I work on is in no way sensitive. When I need to order something even small things the process can take months and months. We had to order some projector bulbs for a very specialized projector which was only produced by the company that made the projector. The procurement process took 10 months and we were not allowed to buy the bulbs from the manufacture we had to buy them from a 3rd party at a steep markup. I have stayed this long because I am being compansated well (a little better then I could do in the Valley after taking into account cost of living) but its not worth it. The system is broken and I am burned out.
- eglover 12y ago
  Careful. HN likes to downvote anything that's not liberal. Real world be damned.