261–270 of 333 posts
As a Canadian who has worked at IBM, I'm not surprised that this didn't find success. In IBMs defense, I don't believe our public sector has the experience or aptitude required to act as a supporting interface for a job of this scale. With that being said, IBM isn't a successful technology company with a proven record building good software products. They were an unwise choice from the get-go. IBM is a successful fin…
prospective
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sales and Engineering - very different competencies. Companies like IBM are NOT technology companies. They are sales-culture oriented, and their product HAPPENS TO BE technology. In fact you could argue, the only way to win big enterprise contracts in the first place, is to be a sales-culture company. But after selling the deal, their workers have to solve a difficult engineering and organizational management problem…
I disagree, IBM is a multifaceted company. These kinds of projects fall under what used to be called IBM Global Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Global_Services . It could be compared somewhat to EDS (HP), Accenture, Perot Systems (Dell) etc. I've never heard of over-delivery from any of these kinds of outsourcing arrangements, they always seem so obviously destined for boondoggle. IBM proper, the one that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sales and Engineering - very different competencies. Companies like IBM are NOT technology companies. They are sales-culture oriented, and their product HAPPENS TO BE technology. In fact you could argue, the only way to win big enterprise contracts in the first place, is to be a sales-culture company. But after selling the deal, their workers have to solve a difficult engineering and organizational management problem…
I disagree, IBM is a multifaceted company. These kinds of projects fall under what used to be called IBM Global Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Global_Services . It could be compared somewhat to EDS (HP), Accenture, Perot Systems (Dell) etc. I've never heard of over-delivery from any of these kinds of outsourcing arrangements, they always seem so obviously destined for boondoggle. IBM proper, the one that…
[0]: https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/p...
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…
Sales and Engineering - very different competencies. Companies like IBM are NOT technology companies. They are sales-culture oriented, and their product HAPPENS TO BE technology. In fact you could argue, the only way to win big enterprise contracts in the first place, is to be a sales-culture company. But after selling the deal, their workers have to solve a difficult engineering and organizational management problem…
They will build the most complicated thing that could possibly solve the problem. And then you can’t get rid of them because holy shit nobody else wants to deal with their code.
If Rube Goldberg and H P Lovecraft had a child it would weep in despair knowing that in all its life it would never create something as sinister and complex as the stuff IGS makes before breakfast.
They were trying to charge $80k a year for a proxy server to handle XML RPC. For a system that was basically ftp with code signing. Our team took care of the code signing, soup to nuts. To this day I don’t know what they were doing with all that money for a tiny part of the system. Except try to take over. They didn’t expect the wall of competence they encountered.
So: for anybody who is curious what's actually going on here: 1. Problems are far bigger than the specific payroll software system. There were tens of thousands of outstanding cases in 2015 before the new system went live. There were tens of thousands of outstanding cases in 2012 when the project started. And there were tens of thousands of outstanding cases every year before that on the "old great system". (why? rea…
Likewise, pt 5 (and 3). Example; pre phoenix, our summer students would always have a pay glitch end of July - why, comp advisor on holidays, didn't properly brief their replacement, stuff fell through the cracks.
I think the scale of the problem and suffering is much greater with this implementation than it was under the disparate departmental systems.
Not to be political, but, really that plays into this while conversations is that what I don't think can be ignored in all of this though is that the Harper mentality of consolidate to save money hasn't worked in any regard; just look at Shared Services - try getting timely procurement, and oh, BTW, no spares allowed to be kept... complete clusterf... as well. That's a whole other mess that affects people in a different way - oh, your phone line is down; tech will be there in 2-3 months.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apropos HN, he then says, officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing welfare system by inserting an untested, theoretical experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or personal suffering of…
ML based welfare eligibility screening seems a few short steps from Kafka. I'm not sure if that's what they were doing, but it seems like something that somebody would think is a great idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sales and Engineering - very different competencies. Companies like IBM are NOT technology companies. They are sales-culture oriented, and their product HAPPENS TO BE technology. In fact you could argue, the only way to win big enterprise contracts in the first place, is to be a sales-culture company. But after selling the deal, their workers have to solve a difficult engineering and organizational management problem…
I disagree, IBM is a multifaceted company. These kinds of projects fall under what used to be called IBM Global Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Global_Services . It could be compared somewhat to EDS (HP), Accenture, Perot Systems (Dell) etc. I've never heard of over-delivery from any of these kinds of outsourcing arrangements, they always seem so obviously destined for boondoggle. IBM proper, the one that…
And my intention not to bash IBM or even IGS, but describe WHY some, not just IGS but many others - mega-projects blow up.
My fault for not making that clear. I’d edit the post but I can’t now. Their technology LOBs I’m sure are a different story.
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…
Apropos HN, he then says, officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing welfare system by inserting an untested, theoretical experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or personal suffering of…
It's a frustrating place to be put in charge of for a political appointee charged with reform, usually without alot of knowledge, or with a idealogical bent fueled by conservative dogma in this case.
IGS is a shitshow, but outsourcing stuff like this is ridiculously dumb. IBM was in a position where failure was the only option, and anyone attempting to do this will fail. IBM underestimated the difficulty of the task, probably because the customer had zero clue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apropos HN, he then says, officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing welfare system by inserting an untested, theoretical experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or personal suffering of…
ML based welfare eligibility screening seems a few short steps from Kafka. I'm not sure if that's what they were doing, but it seems like something that somebody would think is a great idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apropos HN, he then says, officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing welfare system by inserting an untested, theoretical experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or personal suffering of…
ML based welfare eligibility screening seems a few short steps from Kafka. I'm not sure if that's what they were doing, but it seems like something that somebody would think is a great idea.
I think IBM bought an Irish company that did similar work in the UK, so it probably looked achievable, and a potential Cash cow for other states. (Accenture was able to sell child welfare solutions at great profit in the 90s) Its a great business as it generates alotmof complimentary sales and services.