Reminds me of the discussion here a couple years ago when Accenture was sued over their website redesign for Hertz rental cars:
CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
101–110 of 688 posts
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#102I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?
I mean, given the results, it seems pretty clear they didn't know what to ask for, how to specify requirements, how to verify they got what they asked for, etc. That sort of thing doesn't get easier if you're hiring your own engineers.
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#103Hey CDC, I’ll build your website for half that price. By myself. And it will work. Just uh, hit me up haha It’s insane how far those unfamiliar with software will take the mythical man month. Nonono throwing money and people at your problem is absolutely not guaranteed to solve it better. My offer is of course a joke, well unless they want to talk specifics and I agree it’s reasonable to take on myself. Or just plain…
are you also going to answer the phone calls and e-mails of thousands (potentially millions) of technology illiterate users?
[deleted]
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#104This makes me so upset.
I'm currently also at a federal research institution thats millions of dollars over budget and years behind on a software project, and there is NO PRESSURE on the management because federal grant money printer go brrrr.
If time is money, this is peoples lives. Who holds these people accountable?
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, that's the problem with congress and parliamentary systems. They divide guilt over hundreds of people, so that citizens cannot plausibly vote anyone out. How naive and stupid are these government people? They've been swindled like this multiple times before, it was on the national news with the Obamacare website. They're supposed to be the best we have. They won a vote after all.
The US federal government employs over 4 million people. The employees at the CDC probably never heard of the problems with the obamacare website, let alone had the chance to learn any lessons from the people involved. > They're supposed to be the best we have. They won a vote after all. These mistakes aren't made by the politicians you elected. They're made by civic servants. Civic servants are employed from the poo…
Well thanks for calling me out as to not knowing who the hell is responsible.
I agree with your approach... we need experts, who will NOT bid to one company, who will NOT accept one-sided terms.
These are fat government contracts we're talking about... the company should have to take 100% responsibility to deliver a working website at cost.
If companies mismanage and fail, they should go out of business, and another company can try... instead of us paying for it, incentivizing bad behavior.
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've no love for Deloitte, but the one benefit they do have here is the ability to mobilize quickly on something like this. It's simply impossible to "hire 146 engineers" within any reasonable time frame, let alone get them all organized in a way that you can manage them effectively (and don't forget the project managers/scrum masters/etc that would need to be hired too). Deloitte, OTOH, has an entire existing busine…
That’s not my experience. I was hired for a particular engagement with Microsoft years ago by a similar firm. Microsoft needed x, the firm had nobody so they put out an urgent call and passed me off like I was one of their long-time employees. I think it’s safe to say nobody has a bench of 146 people ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Yes, these companies sub-contract, but that doesn't change my comment. Sub-contracting is something that Deloitte et al know how to do, and have existing relationships with staffing agencies, have an existing management structure to manage those subcontractors, have existing contracts so you don't need to waste time negotiating, etc.
And with all that said, companies like Deloitte do have hundreds of people ready to go. They may not have a deep bench for certain niche projects, but I used to work at a Big4 and for something generic like "build us a website for people to sign up", we had entire offices of people around the globe in our offshore delivery centers just waiting around for work like that. Oftentimes we would still subcontract because it works out to be cheaper if 10-20% of your resources on any given project are subcontractors, but they weren't always necessary.
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#107Why hasn't any politician taken up a stance against bloated contracts like these? I think it's a cause that lots of folks could get behind.
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's my money. Not a company's. To anyone who disagrees, how is this statement wrong?
It’s 0.00275% of the income tax paid annually ($44M/$1.6T)and an even smaller amount of the total tax. Assuming you’re an average taxpayer, it cost you about thirty one cents ($44M/143M people). If you’re a median taxpayer it’s even less. This is a giant fuck up, but way out of perspective. Even with all the other fuckups, the wasted portion of your taxes surely isn’t enough for heads to roll.
That's just one fuckup though.
How many more fuckups does the government have?
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Obamacare website cost $2 billion according to a Bloomberg piece in 2014. Don't ask me how that's even possible.
And don't forget the State of Oregon paid an additional $240 million for their own version of it [1]. [1] https://www.koin.com/news/oregon-oracle-settle-cover-oregon-...
Wow I’m amazed like how much money can made if you are into government contracting
I’m just curious to know can you get government contracts let’s say if you are running a software agency
Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs
#110I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?
>> At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year.
It’s Deloitte, they probably hired 100 developers for 80k and 50 project managers for 300k