111–120 of 333 posts
I am guessing one of the reasons is probably the software selected... oracle
Oracle/PeopleSoft can do payroll for a defense contractor with tens of thousands of employees across multiple nations. I think proper configuration is what's lacking in this case.
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”...
Not just all IT initiatives - I just heard today that the project that would eventually create the Ford Pinto was also named Phoenix. (from Stuff You Should Know podcast)
> 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 prob…
Committees are a bad way to solve a problem of mis-aligned interests.
> 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 prob…
I think from the perspective of IBM, this contract has been good. They made way more from the Canadian government than they initially estimated the contract to be.
Reminiscent of the state of Indiana's lawsuit against IBM for allegedly botching a project to automate the state's welfare system — lots of finger-pointing on both sides; the trial court's 65-page decision started out with the words, "Neither party deserves to win this case" [0]. The case has been up to the Indiana Supreme Court already [1]; on remand last summer, the trial court found that IBM is liable for USD $128…
Not having ever worked on anything like this, the death knell for these projects must be the inability to ever reduce functionality into a reasonable core set. Basically the 80/20 rule but where there are practically an infinite number of edge cases that stretch the project on indefinitely? You could serve 80% of the payroll burden with software that cost $10m. 90% coverage costs $100m. 98% costs $1,000m. And 100% co…
Zeno's Featureset
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> 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 prob…
Oh they knew, and they cared... about the money
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?
I've done a ton of projects in consulting, not IBM, but you've never heard of any of them, because they worked, and the customer was happy (although maybe some delays, or other randomness.)
It's self selecting that news is about massive failures.
The whole big 4 IT consulting industry needs to die a swift death. It's basically institutionalized corruption. Overbill the client, under deliver with shoddy products made overseas, get that vendor lock in and watch the money flow in. The cost savings are largely an illusion sold by false promises of a better world.
These big IT firms sell a premium on top of what the very best US-based development shops would charge, and then outsource it to the cheapest bidder overseas. It's a scam. I don't blame the overseas teams. They are getting paid a fraction of what they should be. So there's probably a lot of junior developers working on this stuff.