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CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

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Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#161

Post by scythe »

didibus wrote: post #13

I 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.

You can, but the government has to jump through a lot of hoops. Even government contractors have to jump through a lot of hoops. Sometimes there are regulations affecting the hiring process even for government contractors, e.g. drug tests, citizenship requirements, background checks, location requirements, etc. Every relevant law named after a sympathetic child adds $5B to development costs. And so forth.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#162

Post by briandear »

tidepod12 wrote: post #117
AshWolfy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should have been started at the beginning of the pandemic, if this was a rush job then that raises further incompetence questions

I mean it's certainly no secret that the US government suffered from incredible incompetence when it came to managing the pandemic. With that said, the start of the pandemic was ~1 year ago. Even if it started right then, 12 months for a country-wide, government-run IT project is a rush job.

What government managed it right? Anyone in Europe?

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#163

Post by krrrh »

NearAP wrote: post #98
bbeesley wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users. That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough…

>>Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users. That thinking is exactly the reason why this system turned out to be problematic. Even if it wasn't for healthcare purposes, b…

Detect IE, redirect to a static site with a 1-800 number, have a call centre staffed with people running Chromebooks schedule an appointment over the phone.

Probably cheaper overall, and certainly a better user experience for the tech-challenged seniors.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#164

Post by [deleted] »

mdorazio wrote: post #52
didibus wrote: post #13

I 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?

These contracts are generally bloated, but if you've never seen how a $10M+ contract for things like this works you're probably thinking about it wrong. The actual development piece is a pretty small portion of the overall work. The bulk of it is figuring out all the requirements, wrangling legacy systems and data into some kind of shape that can either be interfaced with or imported, documentation, support (includin…

[deleted]

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#165

Post by antipaul »

amluto wrote: post #148

I find myself wondering why much technology is needed. If I were running a mass vaccination campaign, I would approach it like this: First, I would create extremely fine grained but easy to check eligibility tiers. Going by date of birth would be the most basic solution. At any given time, vaccinations are open to people born on or before a given date. [0] Then, I would set up real mass vaccination sites. None of thi…

The small problem with your kind of approach is that it would make the army of administrators and contractors like “Deloitte.” quite redundant, and then they’d actually have to do non-Bullshit Jobs!

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#166

Post by brundolf »

lmilcin wrote: post #17

I have worked with Deloitte on two projects (on clients' side, I would never willingly work for Deloitte). Generally expect them to do absolute minimum necessary to meet the contract. The code was obfuscated to ensure support contract. The people employed to write it were not interested in the quality in the slightest but were interested a lot in specifics of the contract.

Serious question: why doesn't the government have its own internal software development department at this point? One that's familiar with all the regulatory and bureaoucratic hurdles and the legacy systems, but doesn't have the incentive to grift. For the amount of money they spend on these contracts surely they could afford to pay competitive salaries?

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#167

Post by barry27 »

bbeesley wrote: post #85
NearAP wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a 'software engineering' thing. If you look at it from a software development POV, then the issue is more of not having 'product managers' whose job it is to - understand the requirements, write the specs, basically champion the POV of the end user (after actually identifying the correct end user). Examples a) The article talked about the software not working on Internet Explorer (IE). Older people still…

Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users. That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough…

"That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough ask."

Bollocks. Stop talking and start thinking.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#168

Post by FireBeyond »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #2

> Why was Deloitte awarded the project on a no-bid basis? The contracts claim the company was the only “responsible source”[1] to build the tool. [1]: https://www.acquisition.gov/far/6.302-1

Which is horseshit (though we know that). I know of another, far smaller, leaner consulting firm that has handled for at least half a dozen states a contact tracing ecosystem tying into DOH, and utilizing the mobile APIs.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#169

Post by jnathsf »

Deloitte is using salesforce for the underlying technology of the system. So almost all of this work is configuration and maybe some customization. We worked with another state that almost selected Deloitte but they bombed the no cost bake off and ultimately chose another vendor which completed 80% of the work during the bake off. This approach lowers risk dramatically and you’re able to set an aggressive and a more accurate launch date.

I hope we see more govts adopting bake-offs for buying IT.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#170

Post by rtx »

hntrader wrote: post #33
didibus wrote: post #13

I 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?

The Obamacare website cost $2 billion according to a Bloomberg piece in 2014. Don't ask me how that's even possible.

It's possible if some money is flowing back to the people approving the deal.
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