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Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

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Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#101

Post by AndyNemmity »

threeseed wrote: post #43
bloomingfractal wrote: post #5

and that's why governments should hire software engineers that can be in the loop and understand not only the technical but the policy side. Hiring an army of contractors earning 300k/year to deliver "something" in the waterfall model is a recipe for disaster.

Have you actually tried what you are saying ? Because it's a nice idea just completely unrealistic. Software engineers who are not just technical but SMEs as well as having excellent skills in stakeholder engagement are incredibly rare. And most of them know how good they are and are contracting at, you guessed it, around 300k/year. Talented engineers are usually quite savvy when it comes to money. Also for most proj…

You're absolutely correct, it's nigh impossible to find SMEs you can even put in front of a stakeholder, and not totally jeopardize something.

I've been on the end of jeopardizing, and on the end of bringing in SMEs... It's a nightmare.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#102

Post by tboyd47 »

> The project was meant to save costs by firing 1,200 employees handling payroll at various departments around the country and replacing them with about 500 people in a centralized location using Phoenix to handle most of the government’s payroll needs.

> The government will spend C$431 million to keep the program running in the near term, on top of C$460 million already spent to put Phoenix in place and fix the problems it generated.

So for each of the individual salaries Phoenix was supposed to eliminate, they spent C$600k ($500k USD) in up-front costs, and it will be another C$600k to clean up the mess. Turns out, software takes a lot of time and money to build. Who knew? I guess IBM didn't. Or maybe they didn't care?

Maybe there should be some kind of advisory board system for large software projects, made up of disinterested-yet-well-informed techies, similar to what exists for corporations.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#103

Post by tyu100 »

walrus01 wrote: post #53

Canadian here. This has become a huge political football. People are blaming the current Liberal government, when the project was started by the Harper Conservatives. The full extent of just how fucked up it is has just now become public knowledge. It is also a political pork barrel project. > The project was meant to save costs by firing 1,200 employees handling payroll at various departments around the country and…

This isn't really a political issue. Implementation was done by the civil service and was and is managed by non-political deputy ministers. There was a similar disaster with the centralization of web servers in the federal civil service a couple of years ago.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#104

Post by halfnibble »

CivBase wrote: post #80

Does anyone know what the real problem was here? > Some people were paid too much, others not at all. Those issues snowballed with the deluge of requests to fix incorrect paychecks. > IBM said it’s “fulfilling its obligations on the Phoenix contract, and the software is functioning as intended.” Okay, so the cost is coming from incorrect paycheck values, but the software is working correctly? Does that mean it's huma…

My guess is that IBM believes the software works according to specification. And maybe it does. Maybe the specifications are wrong. Most likely, it's a combination of bad specs and programmed logic errors that don't always follow the specs that are correct.

Of course, this requires testing and time to hash out. It would be a major mistake to scrap a project in it's final phase of refinement. They should have switched over slowly, department by department, handling and resolving issues along the way. But scrapping the entire project now only means another $1B investment and repeat down the road. Trudeau would join the ranks of the FAA in flushing multi-billion dollar software projects. It's a waste. I don't know about this project, but software engineers died on-the-job working on the FAA's AAS that never launched.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#105

Post by da02 »

projectileboy wrote: post #6
didgeoridoo wrote: post #3

The name is just too perfect: https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine... To that point, I’m wondering if all IT initiatives codenamed “Phoenix” are doomed from the start, given that the implication is “let’s burn down everything we have that works, and rise anew from the ashes”...

Hah! I make this joke all the time with friends. I have literally been on three different failed projects named ‘Phoenix’

Why did they fail?

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#107

Post by 52-6F-62 »

j45 wrote: post #31
52-6F-62 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why Ceridian is still around in spite of all of their faults (or so I hear from any small/mid-size business practitioners I know). I take it that's who you're referring to?

There's actually a few at that size, Ceridian is one, ADP is another... Most have their pros and cons but ultimately can handle complex union type payrolls. Payroll, also is ripe for disruption.

>Payroll, also is ripe for disruption.

From everything I hear about working with those companies—new and suitable replacements would be welcomed wholeheartedly.

That is, if they can maintain the same level of professionalism and ability to handle situations like you mentioned. Reliability is of immense importance, so it's not as easy to just hack away at it and sell people an MVP and iterate.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#108

Post by AndyNemmity »

j45 wrote: post #58
ismail wrote: post #21

I am guessing one of the reasons is probably the software selected... oracle

Likely not true. Software implementations usually fail because of the implementors failing to understand and map the business needs prior to beginning in detail, vs launching with whatever and making twice as much money fixing it after the fact "as you go". I have lead a few full cycle ERP implementations, and replaced vendors along the way if they were not performing. The challenge remains is software vendors are no…

It's a mix, I've lead many enterprise implementations, erp, crm, etc. It's not just the implementors, it's all of the above, from the lack of the customer even being able to communicate the business needs.

It'd be lovely if you were right, because the problem is then fixable, but you can take the most motivated, best team of SMEs into a project, and be unsuccessful given the client.

It's all a mess trying to get things done, and every single company is different. Going onsite that first few weeks is an exploration into in what exact ways the mess is going to manifest itself, and how we're going to fight our way through it.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#109

Post by dajt »

Analemma_ wrote: post #82

It's been a long time since I've heard about any successful projects coming out of IBM's consulting and services businesses. Mostly it's one headline after another like this- "Billion dollar project scrapped". How much longer can they keep coasting on the reputation of what was, if we're being honest, a completely different business that just happened to have the same name?

It's incredible, isn't it? I can't believe any govt still hires them. They were behind the Australian census debacle too.

Re: Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

#110

Post by da02 »

alxlaz wrote: post #100
didgeoridoo wrote: post #3

The name is just too perfect: https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine... To that point, I’m wondering if all IT initiatives codenamed “Phoenix” are doomed from the start, given that the implication is “let’s burn down everything we have that works, and rise anew from the ashes”...

> To that point, I’m wondering if all IT initiatives codenamed “Phoenix” are doomed from the start Firefox seems to be doing pretty well :-).

There is also the Phoenix web framework for Elixir. However, it's supposed to help people recover and deal with failure :) It's an Erlang thing.
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