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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

#301

Post by ethbr0 »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #244
nataz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not entirely untrue. I've billed 50% of a project's hours as "still waiting for system access."

Granted, that was a pathologically bad customer, but it happens.

The ironic thing is the question you usually get from them is "Do you have access yet?"

It's your system and your company! How do you not know the answer to that question?!

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

#303

Post by lonnyk »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #83
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well surely there were tests...

Nope! They solved it the opposite way. Their bug tracking system consisted of individual customers who called up to report bugs. I.e. Joe Blow would call up and say "Hey, I'm supposed to see 231 shares, but I only see 219 shares." That would result in a bug report. The bug report was that Joe Blow saw that outcome. In other words, the bug report didn't contain anything about the code itself. They had an entire divisi…

How did they verify that Joe Blow was actually supposed to have 231 shares instead of 219?

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

#305

Post by pjscott »

eigenvector wrote: post #277
nataz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Now think of the problem in reverse, from the government's side. Why are they contracting it out when all of the most difficult aspects involve integrating with government systems, policies and personnel - things that government already knows how to do? "Because we don't have the expertise to do software development." The comments in this thread, which I fully agree with by the way, just cement my belief that if gove…

Does the government, in fact, know how to do those things? How would we know if they did or didn't?

I notice that they spend oddly large amounts of money on anything for which we know what the cost roughly should be -- e.g. CDC web sites -- and don't seem to do so very quickly or very well. Should we assume that they're a lot more competent at things we know less about?

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

#306

Post by brundolf »

ergocoder wrote: post #286
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?

Generally, it's much better for the government to outsource. More competency and reduce corruption. I came from a country where government tries to do all these things in house. It was bad. Paying premium isn't a big problem.

I mean, the main theme of this thread is the existing incompetency and corruption

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

#307

Post by blackrock »

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…

It sounds like they needed a senior business systems analyst to map out the functional requirements specifications document.

Usually, though not always, this helps to give a road map for the organization to follow.

Bugs will arise of course, but usually, it becomes localized, and can be addressed individually.

But for large systems, with lots of moving parts and data integrations with other systems, then you normally need a good, near-air-tight specifications document.

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

#308

Post by jandrewrogers »

I’ve done a lot of work for multiple national governments on multiple projects. There are two facts that can be true at the same time:

- The government often grotesquely overpays for mediocre product delivered by vendors without holding them accountable in a meaningful way

- The government process drives up costs to an insane level independent of implementor good faith efforts and strongly selects for companies good at the process rather than execution

These are two different problems, and both of them manifest with any large contract. I would make the observation that it is easier to hide mediocre product and execution when you can hide behind a grotesquely inefficient and mediocre government process.

What transpired here should never happen. But I know why and how it happened.

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

#309

Post by eaton »

ethbr0 wrote: post #292
eigenvector wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now think of the problem in reverse, from the government's side. Why are they contracting it out when all of the most difficult aspects involve integrating with government systems, policies and personnel - things that government already knows how to do? "Because we don't have the expertise to do software development." The comments in this thread, which I fully agree with by the way, just cement my belief that if gove…

This is pretty much what I've learned doing 5+ years of big enterprise consulting (though not government). If the hardest / longest part of any project requires domain knowledge and personal relationships, then why are you outsourcing that part? I don't care if it's not a core competency / something you can do. Make it one.

One of the biggest challenges for large orgs is that the knowledge they need to do a given thing is almost always present inside the organization — but it's fragmented and scattered across different teams, roles, and balkanized administrative boundaries such that the big picture is almost never available.

A high-quality consulting partner works to build the relationships and internal lines of communication that are necessary for the client organization to do more of the work — maybe all of it! — in the future. A cash-grab consultancy will just make themselves the organization's "glue" and bill until the money runs dry.

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

#310

Post by tomrod »

eigenvector wrote: post #277
nataz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Now think of the problem in reverse, from the government's side. Why are they contracting it out when all of the most difficult aspects involve integrating with government systems, policies and personnel - things that government already knows how to do? "Because we don't have the expertise to do software development." The comments in this thread, which I fully agree with by the way, just cement my belief that if gove…

They have started.

https://www.usds.gov/

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