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The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

economist.com

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Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#41

Post by kryten »

_pmf_ wrote: post #2

I vaguely remember reading uplifting, grandiose articles and presentations about domain driven design at the BBC; search for "BBC domain driven design". From this article, I cannot deduce whether this failed CMS is the same system that has been glorified in these presentations or something else; maybe someone can shed some light on this.

It probably is. I've experienced the fact that DDD scales up only until the consultants have gone :)

Same as NserviceBus only works until you've paid for the training.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#42

Post by archivator »

true_religion wrote: post #8
JonnieCache wrote: post #6

Note that the content in this CMS is hours and hours of raw video footage rather than the usual snippets of text.

Duely noted, but I don't think it ought to make a difference in the price tag unless the CMS was doing conversion and distribution.

IIRC, their CMS was supposed to be the Holy Grail of video management. Centralized and decentralized storage, processing farms, search-by-image, advanced tagging, etc. Sounded quite impressive but from what I understand, there are now commercial solutions that have some of those feature sets. The way they explain it, when they started no one had these features.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#43

Post by _yosefk »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #28
macspoofing wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Publicly funded broadcaster makes same mistake most large private enterprises make in more or less the same way. Actually large private enterprises don't usually make this kind of mistake. This is a typical big government project. Software development is hard. Building large, complex, poorly defined software systems is hard. //EDIT I should clarify that. I don't think a private enterprise would engage in a project t…

There's nothing special about private enterprises that makes them immune to risk. As others have said, many IT projects fail [1]. In the private sector this is just seen as a business risk, but when a public sector project fails then its "wasting taxpayers money". For some reason the Economist article doesn't mention that the project was originally awarded to Siemens and Deloitte [2], but technical failures and cost…

There's something special about private enterprises making them reconsider their approaches, though - the fact that they lose their own money (which is often combined with having a smaller pool of money to begin with). Few enterprises can spend $150M and fewer will keep spending upon signs of things not working out.

As to private contractors doing a poor job when paid with taxpayer money - makes some sense, as long as said money keeps flowing. In a different setting the flow would stop more quickly.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#44

Post by macspoofing »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
macspoofing wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't think a large enterprise would engage in an internal $100 million project to build a CMS. I'm not saying private enterprises can't fail or don't fail. They just wouldn't fail in this specific way at that magnitude.

Massive write-offs for failed projects and acquisitions are pretty common in large enterprises.

Failed acquisitions are pretty common, failed projects too. I'm not disputing that, and that wasn't my argument. I added a clarification to my post.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#45

Post by IanCal »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #39
realtalker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no one working for the BBC in the UK would make that sort of money as a developer

I don't know about that. I've seen a few tech jobs around the £70-80k mark at the BBC, which is about $120k. Throw in the additional benefits and it's probably not far off.

Hah, I wish. I was a senior engineer there and earned less than half that.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#47

Post by andyjohnson0 »

macspoofing wrote: post #26
rikthevik wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually large private enterprises don't usually make this kind of mistake. This is a typical big government project. Your last two points contradict your first two. There's nothing unique about a government's ability to make terrible decisions. I'd say one difference is that private enterprises typically go under if the mistake is big enough, and they have no great interest in telling the public about their mistak…

I just don't think a large enterprise would engage in an internal $100 million project to build a CMS. I'm not saying private enterprises can't fail or don't fail. They just wouldn't fail in this specific way at that magnitude.

"I just don't think a large enterprise would engage in an internal $100 million project to build a CMS."

Isn't this a circular argument? If a company doesn't want to build a system in-house then its only other option is to contract another company to build it. At some point, someone has to build the system.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#48

Post by jamespo »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #39
realtalker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no one working for the BBC in the UK would make that sort of money as a developer

I don't know about that. I've seen a few tech jobs around the £70-80k mark at the BBC, which is about $120k. Throw in the additional benefits and it's probably not far off.

You don't join the BBC for the money in IT... for the lax culture perhaps.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#49

Post by JamisonM »

macspoofing wrote: post #14
JamisonM wrote: post #4

Real headline: Publicly funded broadcaster makes same mistake most large private enterprises make in more or less the same way. It seems to me that months or years of auditing and hearings and cries for heads to roll are probably wasted. Just like a private company a few mangers should probably get tossed or reassigned and the second version of the same project should get started to address the businesses needs the f…

>Publicly funded broadcaster makes same mistake most large private enterprises make in more or less the same way. Actually large private enterprises don't usually make this kind of mistake. This is a typical big government project. Software development is hard. Building large, complex, poorly defined software systems is hard. //EDIT I should clarify that. I don't think a private enterprise would engage in a project t…

Your edit: ..having so little impact on it's primary revenue driver..

Sorry, you are still wrong. The BBC is specifically in the business of video content and their failed system was a video content management system. You can not get any more core to a business than that! This is a quintessential big software project failure I do not see how it being in government has anything to do with it or how you have made any kind of case for that belief.

Re: The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It

#50

Post by JPKab »

protomyth wrote: post #29
macspoofing wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Publicly funded broadcaster makes same mistake most large private enterprises make in more or less the same way. Actually large private enterprises don't usually make this kind of mistake. This is a typical big government project. Software development is hard. Building large, complex, poorly defined software systems is hard. //EDIT I should clarify that. I don't think a private enterprise would engage in a project t…

> Actually large private enterprises don't usually make this kind of mistake. I would say "Actually large private enterprises don't usually [admit to making] this kind of mistake." I swear the ERP and document management are the two areas where every enterprise tries to "standardize across organizational units" and fails badly[1]. I have come to believe that this type of software is hard because it imposes rules fore…

ERPs are a great example. but I don't necessarily agree with your view that a large enterprise's existing workflow is superior. My take:

Most large enterprises have workflows which could be vastly improved by automation of ANY kind, even one that is imposed by a minimally customized ERP. ERP implementations are most successful, on both an ROI front as well as success in implementation, when they are brought in and the existing workflow, at a high level, is redesigned to fit the tool. Why?

The other path is chaos, because you are essentially asking people whose jobs revolve around doing things manually to "build their own replacement." A simple way of putting it is getting the assembly-line workers to have input on a new, highly automated assemblyline. They don't want the robots to do their jobs for them. Instead they will all insist on the value of their interaction in the process, and the robots will simply be tasked with helping them do their job instead of simply replacing them.

When ERPs succeed, they lead to lots of admin people getting laid off or reassigned. These are the same people that have to be consulted if you want to customize them for a company's existing workflow. They fight tooth and nail to keep everything the same as it was.

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