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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

#271

Post by noonespecial »

dpweb wrote: post #210
dctoedt wrote: post #38

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…

That seems a little over-analyzed. Sales is seen as a profit center, engineering is seen as a cost center.

This is no different than a good salesman selling some shipping contracts and then the company failing to deliver because some penny pinching nit-wit "saved" some money by skipping oil changes and tire maintenance causing the trucks to break down before the job was done.

Its just on a bigger scale.

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

#272

Post by rosege »

walrus01 wrote: post #59
kabdib wrote: post #28

Was not surprised to see Oracle and PeopleSoft involved. I hope they get the crap sued out of them. That stuff is toxic, and I pity any organization that Oracle got its claws into using that junk.

Unless you are one of the people who makes a medium six figure salary as a deck officer on Larry Ellison's yacht, Oracle is utterly toxic.

I doubt they are on medium - probably low. I once met the IT guy onboard his yacht. Told me a funny story about trying to get the superbowl for one of Larry's mates one year.

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

#273

Post by tobtoh »

dpweb wrote: post #210
dctoedt wrote: post #38

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…

> The sales guys are at the top. They are generally competent. Proof = they sold a massive deal.

Seems very flawed logic. Anyone can make a sale if you promise everything, charge a low price (that can't sustain your organisation/solution), and have no responsibility for actually being able to deliver within the timeframe they promised.

I fail to see how that shows the sales person is competent.

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

#274

Post by mathattack »

dctoedt wrote: post #38

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…

I’ve had nothing but terrible experiences with IBM Global Services. With deals like this, the commission check is cut long before the problems arise.

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

#275

Post by avinium »

watertom wrote: post #258

I was the CTO for a large, Fortune 100 company. When I first took over the position I would regularly get requirements documents for internal projects that were 3 or 400 hundred pages. The project team would dutifully carry out the requirements gathering process, everything was meticulously documented, with data flows, and process maps, etc. Everything was a requirement, everything was mandatory, and everything had t…

Governments everywhere would function a lot better if there were more people like you in them.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but government managers are deathly afraid to stick their necks out and say "no" to the ridiculous spec-by-committee approach to projects.

It's a lot easier to shift the blame to contractors, particularly when most projects take so long that they're obsolete by the time they go live.

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

#276

Post by makecheck »

Sometimes I wonder how these projects are started; is it really that they go straight to “here’s a binding contract for millions”, without having them do any smaller projects in between?

If it were me, at the very least I would start with something small and say: “deliver this, let me see how it works, give me every last line of code for further inspection, then we’ll talk more”. I mean, have them build a mini-site or something and make sure that they’re competent before unleashing them on the entire payroll system, right? And you don’t need some grand familiarity with the software industry to plan that way, it just makes sense to start smaller and make sure you know who you’re really dealing with (and also spending less money if it fails).

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

#277

Post by Cacti »

watertom wrote: post #258

I was the CTO for a large, Fortune 100 company. When I first took over the position I would regularly get requirements documents for internal projects that were 3 or 400 hundred pages. The project team would dutifully carry out the requirements gathering process, everything was meticulously documented, with data flows, and process maps, etc. Everything was a requirement, everything was mandatory, and everything had t…

I have had a similar experience. People hate change, and will do their best to not change their processes, ever, unless someone makes them (which rarely happens). They'd rather spends hundreds of millions of dollars inventing some new piece of software just so that don't have to spend a minute pressing a button they don't want to press.

I am convinced 90% of corporate IT software would be irrelevant if the businesses were willing to change 5 or 10% of their process.

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

#278

Post by megaman22 »

mathattack wrote: post #274
dctoedt wrote: post #38

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…

I’ve had nothing but terrible experiences with IBM Global Services. With deals like this, the commission check is cut long before the problems arise.

With Oracle involved, you've also got the strong possibility that the salesperson who got the commission check on the deal is long gone by the time the product is delivered. Turnover is unreal on some of those teams. I have a friend who no longer works there that had 100% turnover on their team in six months.

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

#279

Post by Arnt »

tobtoh wrote: post #273
dpweb wrote: post #210

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…

> The sales guys are at the top. They are generally competent. Proof = they sold a massive deal. Seems very flawed logic. Anyone can make a sale if you promise everything, charge a low price (that can't sustain your organisation/solution), and have no responsibility for actually being able to deliver within the timeframe they promised. I fail to see how that shows the sales person is competent.

Pretend you're a customer. Would you buy from someone who promises everything at a price that cannot sustain his organisation and accepts no responsibility?

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

#280

Post by walrus01 »

rosege wrote: post #272
walrus01 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are one of the people who makes a medium six figure salary as a deck officer on Larry Ellison's yacht, Oracle is utterly toxic.

I doubt they are on medium - probably low. I once met the IT guy onboard his yacht. Told me a funny story about trying to get the superbowl for one of Larry's mates one year.

Captain position ignored for a moment, I have no idea what second or third mate on a giant Russian/saudi oligarch class of yacht might make in yearly gross, but if I were a billionaire I'd be looking for people with many years of offshore experience and a degree from a major maritime University... $175k usd?
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