Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 688 posts

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

#241

Post by offtop5 »

brundolf wrote: post #223
offtop5 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the absolute Max though. You need to justify that. It's infinitely easier to make on 170k happen in the private sector, then as a federal employee. Unless the government wants to create like a special ops tech department which doesn't use the government pay grades, more money can be made in the private sector. I'm only mid-career or so and I'm already at around 200. But I don't, at least on paper have the qual…

They only have to be better than the Deloitte grifters

The article mentions Florida using Eventbrite.

That seems like a much better solution rather than rolling your own.

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

#242

Post by baskire »

afavour wrote: post #228
j45 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can expand on the Steve Jobs reference. Apple is about creating usable technology for the masses, not the few. Apple also simplified access to legacy systems, like buying music and making it digital. Or maybe using your watch or phone to pay. IPhone is geared for ease of use for anyone to adopt, including folks who arent super tech saavy.. Apple's innovation is charging a premium to create beginners in tech adoptio…

As someone that’s been using Apple products for a few decades I don’t think I can agree that they make “for the masses, not the few”. Their market share figures would show that if that’s their aim then they are failing. IMO Apple makes premium products for a specific kind of customer and have little regard for issues like backwards compatibility. Which is absolutely fine. But probably not a model you’d want the gover…

45% of Americans use an iPhone. That would require users across the economic spectrum.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/236550/percentage-of-us-...

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

#243

Post by Covzire »

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…

I worked at some government contractor a few years ago and one of the tasks I was given was to oversee the implementation of a ticketing system for a client. The basic requirements were for something slightly better than using an excel spreadsheet with basic search functionality. After a preliminary sales call with one well known vendor, they told us the next steps to implementing this system was to bring a consultant on-site to assess all the ancillary requirements, at a cost of nearly $100k. I had a little laugh about it with some colleges and my manager and I kind of wept a little inside, because I doubt this is a rare occurrence and it only takes 1 incompetent manager to create a massive amount of useless revenue for some vendor.

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

#244

Post by ryanmarsh »

nataz wrote: post #226
mdorazio wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This guy gets it. Development is literally the simplest part of the problem set. The intersection of domain expertise, contracting/procurement creativity, and technical evaluation is the tough part to wrangle. Getting to the point where development can start is 95% of the battle in my experience. Not to trivialize the actual development portion of the project, but most missteps happen early, dooming projects before a…

On engagements like these most billable hours are spent waiting on the client to make trivial decisions or give access to data/systems. Deloitte doesn’t usually hire dummies. IME it’s always the client being a total swamp creature.

The high bill rate is for your pain and suffering from having to deal with them.

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

#245

Post by thegeekpirate »

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?

FWIW, feel free to take a look at this contract from the BC government for a centralized education website (http://docs.openinfo.gov.bc.ca/D29078314A_Response_Package_E...). This is what it looks like (https://i.imgur.com/fmUVYhG.png), and for comparison, here is the old website (https://i.imgur.com/IW5J9gS.png).

This is projected to cost 95 million dollars over 12 years.

Yep.

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

#246

Post by colechristensen »

nataz wrote: post #226
mdorazio wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This guy gets it. Development is literally the simplest part of the problem set. The intersection of domain expertise, contracting/procurement creativity, and technical evaluation is the tough part to wrangle. Getting to the point where development can start is 95% of the battle in my experience. Not to trivialize the actual development portion of the project, but most missteps happen early, dooming projects before a…

But most of the rest of it in these huge contracts could just not be done. The myth is that all of the rest is necessary when only a tiny fraction really is.

I have worked in tiny very early stage startups and old dinosaur companies. What comes across loud and clear is that early stage companies could use a bit more organization and dinosaurs could cut huge portions of what they “do” and then both would be in a similar situation to get things done reasonably well.

The bulk of the waste is an attempt to get people who don’t know what they’re doing into a position of getting things done. Sometimes it works.

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

#247

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

aweiland wrote: post #121
lxe wrote: post #107

Why 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.

Because the companies that get these contracts pay for the politician's war chest.

Not to mention employ the politician's constituents.

I don't know if it's ever been conclusively proven, but it's been alleged for decades that the major defense contractors deliberately structure their big projects into subcontracts that can employ people in as many Congressional districts as possible. There are allegedly people in 300+ districts working on the F-35 program, for example.

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

#248

Post by yks »

briandear wrote: post #162
tidepod12 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That is not the point. America fancies itself as an exceptional country (and it certainly is in certain respects) so it is only fair to expect exceptional results from the American leadership.

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

#249

Post by dopylitty »

offtop5 wrote: post #200
brundolf wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For various reasons this wouldn't work, you have the various bands of government salary https://federalnewsnetwork.com/pay/2020/01/more-top-career-e... >But for a GS-15, step 10 in Washington, his or her salary should total roughly $185,509 in 2020. But due to the federal pay ceiling, that same GS-15, step 10 in Washington will make the limit of $170,800 this year. And that's the absolute Max, after you go to the tro…

As someone with a degree in software "engineering" and more than a decade of experience in the industry I'd gladly take a stable government job creating or maintaining important applications that help the government provide high quality and necessary services to people. I would take pride in working on such a system as a vaccine administration management platform. Instead those jobs are doled out to contracting firms whose sole purpose is to fleece the government.

Can you imagine how much better it would feel to work on important and needed systems than working on the 100th food delivery app or yet another social media facism incubator?

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

#250

Post by spanktheuser »

adrianN wrote: post #222
j45 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a lot of $6-700/hr management consultants that don't know much about tech but are happy to channel their inner Steve Jobs to try and architect something. The 22 year olds might not be able to do it (I beg to differ), but can management consultants/accountants who barely took typing in school who have Excel as the height of their digital literacy be expected to have all the answers? By the time this gets t…

> and use Excel as the height of their digital literacy In Germany we literally use fax and enter data by hand. A project that successfully moved things to an emailing Excel sheets based workflow would be absolutely revolutionary.

My former business partner back in the Web 1.0 days (hey D) had remarkable experience in scaling large systems. Studied under ast. Rolled his own ETL language to power primary research for a Nobel-prize winning social scientist. Could sound like Werner Herzog on demand. He’s the kind of man anyone shuts up and listens to. While helping him clean up a failed $25mm Deloitte project circa 1996, we got drunk in a Manhattan bar. Sometime around martini #3 he said:

“The next 10 years of software will be very boring. The entire field of CS will be employed turning paper process into digital process, at great cost. Almost all of these projects will fail because Americans are admirably earnest but tragically over-confident. You underestimate paper.”

“Good money for us though. But have a hobby to occupy your mind or you will be miserable. Zum Wohl.”

And that’s how I ended up order an ill-considered 4th martini. He was correct, although the interregnum was perhaps 2-3 years shorter than he predicted. Or 15 years longer depending on how one judges these things.

Post reply on HN