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A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#41

Post by jessriedel »

cs702 wrote: post #20

The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private sector. Large corporations routinely spend gazillions on software projects that end up working poorly or not at all. Everyone who has worked in Corporate America knows this all too well. The root problem is not bureaucracy either. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have fairly large bureaucracies yet they routinely successfully comple…

> The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private sector. Large corporations routinely spend gazillions on software projects that end up working poorly or not at all. Everyone who has worked in Corporate America knows this all too well.

> The root problem is not bureaucracy either. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have fairly large bureaucracies yet they routinely successfully complete massive software projects.

>...The root problem, I think, is that the people who are put in charge of these massive software projects -- typically, MBAs or lawyers by training -- often don't know anything about how to develop software at scale.

I don't think these explanations are mutually exclusive. If you're right about the root problem being the technical expertise of leaders, then one can still argue that the Amazons of the world slowly rise to the top and displace the K-marts, but an incompetent government can persist indefinitely because it has a monopoly on governance.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#42

Post by BurningFrog »

ilamont wrote: post #5

The amount of repetitive paperwork and needless bureaucratic steps for immigration-related matters is utterly ridiculous. The closest approximation I can make to dealing with immigration-related paperwork is filing taxes without the aid of software and being forced to complete and mail in one section (and have it approved) before moving onto the next.

The immigration system is what the tax system would look like if tax payers couldn't vote.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#43

Post by specialist »

matwood wrote: post #26
cs702 wrote: post #20

The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private sector. Large corporations routinely spend gazillions on software projects that end up working poorly or not at all. Everyone who has worked in Corporate America knows this all too well. The root problem is not bureaucracy either. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have fairly large bureaucracies yet they routinely successfully comple…

Having worked in large companies, small startups, and government, government is orders of magnitude the worst offender when it comes to simply wasting money and getting nothing done. The main difference between small and large companies was it simply took longer for people who got nothing done to be let go. In the worst cases for companies, money stops coming in the door and cuts are forced. Contrast the above with t…

I've done corporate, startup, government (higher ed).

Another difference with government is the intractable complexity.

This plays to the difference between digitization and automation. Automation is the removal of human judgement. It requires simplification of the rules and processes.

My local government revamped their payroll system. The first effort tried to digitize existing rules, and failed utterly. The second effort reworked the payroll rules (automation), allowing them to use software closer to off the shelf, and succeeded.

I consider the projects I worked on for higher ed to be complete failures. Publishing course catalogs, registering for classes, auditing degrees, etc. Conceptually simple stuff. Alas, management tried to implement every single psychotic rule and mutant edge case for each and every stake holder, preserving paper-based processes over 100 years old. Such fun.

My work for a telco wasn't any less nutty making. There's a reason your phone bill is too high: bureaucracy. Their internal IT is terrible. They can't even provide conf call services or roaming wifi to themselves. I sometimes fantasize that Apple or Google will introduce ubiquitous flat rate service, gut the dinosaurs, and making another gagillion dollars just thru operational simplicity.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#45

Post by themetrician »

jerf wrote: post #31
BurningFrog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are terrible projects everywhere. But when individual private companies screw up, other companies do what they tried to do better, and in the end the problem gets solved. > The root problem, I think, is that the people who are put in charge of these massive software projects -- typically, MBAs or lawyers by training -- often don't know anything about how to develop software at scale Sounds like a... branch prob…

"What is the root cause of government projects being run by incompetents?" The incentives tend not to reward competence at achieving a task very well. They tend to reward political climbing. They don't necessarily preclude competence at a task, but energy expended competently performing a task is energy not expended playing politics, which means it tends to get outcompeted. This is not, strictly speaking, a character…

cs702 said: The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private sector.

jerf said: This is not, strictly speaking, a characteristic of "government". Large corporations [...] develop the same problems.

You know, I saw this "10 years, 1 form" article yesterday and I thought how would the HN people react to it. Today I see I should have known they would simply deny this is the government's fault and use the Tu Quoque fallacy to excuse the behavior of government, like good Stockholm-syndrome-afflicted captives.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#46

Post by afarrell »

api wrote: post #39
cs702 wrote: post #20

The root problem is not government. The same thing happens in the private sector. Large corporations routinely spend gazillions on software projects that end up working poorly or not at all. Everyone who has worked in Corporate America knows this all too well. The root problem is not bureaucracy either. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have fairly large bureaucracies yet they routinely successfully comple…

I say this very often: The MBA (who has no other expertise) is capitalism's answer to the Soviet "apparatchik." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik "Management" is a secondary skill in the sense that it only makes any sense if one also has a primary skill. An engineer might learn to manage and thus become an engineering manager. A baker might learn to manage and might manage a baking company or a restaurant/caf…

> To some extent I blame academia for pushing the idea that one can get an MBA and manage things without understanding what one is managing.

Where is this pushed? The advice I've seen is "go work in industry for a few years and get practical experience before getting an MBA." The ads on the subway for MBA programs that I've seen are usually in the terms you describe of going from a baker to manager of a bakery.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#47

Post by cowardlydragon »

jackgavigan wrote: post #40
api wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this very often: The MBA (who has no other expertise) is capitalism's answer to the Soviet "apparatchik." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik "Management" is a secondary skill in the sense that it only makes any sense if one also has a primary skill. An engineer might learn to manage and thus become an engineering manager. A baker might learn to manage and might manage a baking company or a restaurant/caf…

> The MBA (who has no other expertise) is capitalism's answer to the Soviet "apparatchik." I'm an MBA. Are you suggesting that I have no other expertise? Do you think that we undergo some sort of specialised lobotomy at business school to remove the knowledge and experience we accumulated before enroling in business school, and to prevent us from learning anything thereafter?

Well, we know ethics are lobotomized. I'm not specifically denigating you, more of an observation of the overall class.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#48

Post by solutionyogi »

I have spent 10 years in American Immigration system (became permanent resident 2 years ago) and it goes without saying that the immigration process has been the most frustrating part of my stay here.

Here's something funny. In last few years, all the reputed lawyers (Murthy, Ron Gotcher and others) have setup an online portal where you, as a client, fill in everything online. This includes scanning various documents and uploading them. The online portal provides a great workflow which minimizes data entry and avoids data errors. The same portal allows you to chat with your lawyer/paralegal if you have any questions. At the end of this process, the lawyer firm will generate correctly filled in immigration documents which they will print and send it to you. You sign them and send it back so that they can forward it to USCIS! I know it's not practical or possible, but when I was working through this portal, I wished USCIS would just buy this system so that I don't have to pay thousands of dollars to laywers.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#49

Post by api »

jackgavigan wrote: post #40
api wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this very often: The MBA (who has no other expertise) is capitalism's answer to the Soviet "apparatchik." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik "Management" is a secondary skill in the sense that it only makes any sense if one also has a primary skill. An engineer might learn to manage and thus become an engineering manager. A baker might learn to manage and might manage a baking company or a restaurant/caf…

> The MBA (who has no other expertise) is capitalism's answer to the Soviet "apparatchik." I'm an MBA. Are you suggesting that I have no other expertise? Do you think that we undergo some sort of specialised lobotomy at business school to remove the knowledge and experience we accumulated before enroling in business school, and to prevent us from learning anything thereafter?

I think you slightly misread what I meant. I was referring to those who only get an MBA and then think they can manage anything even if they have no other expertise. Maybe your mileage has varied, but I've never seen anything but disasters in the real world when that happens. You can't manage something you don't understand.

Re: A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just one is online

#50

Post by cowardlydragon »

I find a major problem in very large organizations is the centralization of processes when there is ample budget to establish competing organizations.

For example, clouds and datacenters in large orgs should have three different groups offering competing solutions. If one (inevitably) underperforms, then it gets axed and a new datacenter option is bootstrapped.

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