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

technologyreview.com

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

#561

Post by JoBrad »

animex wrote: post #383
zaroth wrote: post #115

> Deloitte is the only contractor that can meet the project requirements, because configuration of the VAMS application is occurring using Deloitte’s propriety GovConnect platform. Therefore, no other contractor has rights or access to leverage the system to carry out O&M activities, such as the administration of the system, change and defect management and end user support. As the only contractor with the GovConnect…

US Digital Service Assemble!

Exactly. We need someone to “Amazon” the shit out of our governmental computing systems (e.g. APIs everywhere), especially those designed to interact with other systems. They should be required to use an accessible API with published schemas and documentation. I’m surprised someone hasn’t identified this as a stability and security risk for our government.

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

#562

Post by School-Cotton »

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…

I’ve heard the main reason is that it’s impossible for the government to pay market rate for high-end software engineers, because of fixed pay bands.

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

#563

Post by Demiurge »

ericmay wrote: post #484
kuschku wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's how I procure anything and everything. I go to geizhals.eu, select the category, select my requirements based on comparative testing from test.de, sort by cheapest total, and click buy. Every single piece of electronics I own was bought that way. How else would you buy stuff without being influenced by some subconscious bias caused by some stupid ad?

What makes you think you aren’t?

Are you asking him to prove a negative?

He just explained he picks the cheapest item in some database based on some specs.

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

#564

Post by selimthegrim »

pxeboot wrote: post #51
hntrader wrote: post #33

Earlier 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-...

I met a manager of this once. She told me Oracle hired anyone with a college degree (hers was English) for her job because “managing developers isn’t that hard, you just have to keep track of milestones etc”

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

#565

Post by atlgator »

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 44M is most likely over 5 years. Knowing Deloitte generally comes in on the high side of pricing I'd say it's around a 37 person team, cross functional including PMs, BAs, developers, testers, devops, Section 508 compliance, IA, user support.

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

#566

Post by bob1029 »

info781 wrote: post #545
snarf21 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a major problem with using contractors. They bill by the hour. Their continued employment is not dependent on doing a good job. They half ass everything because it is about billing and being done. Also, doing a bad job means "overruns" for more free money. The government needs a Department of Technology that runs all these systems for all national systems that are needed. This isn't like building a combat fig…

Good people want to work at places with stock options and bonuses for good performance, the government can not offer that. Government is more suited for people interested in management, not pure technical people

The government absolutely could offer competitive incentive packages if the appropriate legislation can be passed.

At some point it will become obvious that software complexity is a national security issue. I feel that point still hasn't arrived, for whatever reason. Perhaps the realization has arrived, but those offering the realization have biased the reports to favor themselves (i.e. Deloitte, et. al.)

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #560
praeclarum wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call gaming, I call working around the government’s idiotic visa requirements.

That depends on what you see as the purpose of the visa requirements. If the purpose is to support economic prospects for American citizens and current residents (which seems like a completely valid purpose of government), then putting hurdles to ensure the job opening was “shopped” to qualified existing authorized workers seems pretty reasonable. (I should clarify that I’m fully in favor of immigration programs that…

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by Demiurge »

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…

I’m going to be discrete but I know of a Deloitte project where they are allowed to use AWS Fargate, but the gov’t side is limited to IBM mainframes. Why are they so limited? Who knows, but it’s a deep question, that would require total reinvention. Perhaps, in the end, it might not even be worth the risk because the gov’t is so essential. They can’t move fast and break things. But it does look insane as a result.

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

#569

Post by 1cvmask »

sokoloff wrote: post #560
praeclarum wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call gaming, I call working around the government’s idiotic visa requirements.

That depends on what you see as the purpose of the visa requirements. If the purpose is to support economic prospects for American citizens and current residents (which seems like a completely valid purpose of government), then putting hurdles to ensure the job opening was “shopped” to qualified existing authorized workers seems pretty reasonable. (I should clarify that I’m fully in favor of immigration programs that…

Increased supply of labor depresses wages ceteris paribus.

That is why George W Bush and older generation Republicans always supported legal AND illegal immigration. Their constituents were the businesss that thrived and made more profits from a cheaper laborforce.

The Democrats were historically hostile to immigration because their base was the working class. Now that Wall Street and Big Business has gone Democratic since Bill Clinton and the New Democrats there will be more supply of labor and thus lower wages ceteris paribus.

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

#570

Post by wp381640 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #498
jon-wood wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the responsibilities of the UK’s Government Digital Service is to review any IT spending by other departments, and are staffed so that in many cases they can implement and support products themselves rather than outsourcing them. My understanding is that other departments are making headway in being allowed to bypass that process, but at their peak GDS were fantastic at shutting down bad projects before they’d…

tl;dr it's not working Well how the hell do we have a £40M contract for supply of laptops to schoolkids filled by a noname laptop supplier using the jankiest (really low quality, really poor spec) laptops worth maybe £100 but being charged to the taxpayer at >£300 each. School IT people are getting them delivered, a lot are broken, and the cost of repair is given as more than the cost of buying _retail_ a better repl…

The equiv contract in Australia went to Lenovo. Microsoft and Adobe preloaded the laptops with Office and Adobe Suite and no cost. Worked out pretty well.
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