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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

#21

Post by mikeash »

dopamean wrote: post #11
amalag wrote: post #7

In the US I think noone even blinks an eye at $150 million anymore

It's funny you mention that. My first thought was, "wow, that's a lot of money." But then I thought, "but how much is it really?" I actually have no idea how much it should cost for them to do what they were trying to do though I suspect it is probably a fraction of that $150MM.

For a more concrete perspective, if you assume that a good developer costs about $150,000/year, then this is one hundred years of development time for a team of 10 good developers, which is quite a lot.

I don't know just what this thing was supposed to do, so I don't know what the scope is.

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

#22

Post by shitgoose »

_f75i wrote: post #13

As a big fan of the Economist, I'm surprised they didn't catch the typo in the name of the project they're reporting on. "Digitial Media Initiative (DMI)" Especially since a rudimentary spell-checker would have caught it.

I guess Economist's CMS is not as sophisticated, as one at BBC

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

#23

Post by dmragone »

I'm surprised more public projects don't run as bounty-style "build x and get $1 million" type systems. Rather than picking who's going to do what (or worse, building all in-house), having many different small times competing for one pot seems like it might be a better way to get a good starting foundation. Or perhaps that's a crazy idea for something as big as this.

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

#24

Post by rikthevik »

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…

> 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 mistakes.

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

#25

Post by realtalker »

mikeash wrote: post #21
dopamean wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you mention that. My first thought was, "wow, that's a lot of money." But then I thought, "but how much is it really?" I actually have no idea how much it should cost for them to do what they were trying to do though I suspect it is probably a fraction of that $150MM.

For a more concrete perspective, if you assume that a good developer costs about $150,000/year, then this is one hundred years of development time for a team of 10 good developers, which is quite a lot. I don't know just what this thing was supposed to do, so I don't know what the scope is.

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

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

#26

Post by macspoofing »

rikthevik wrote: post #24
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. 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.

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

#27

Post by Uchikoma »

_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.

First thought when I read this: Is this the system das was the base for all their DDD talks?

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

#28

Post by andyjohnson0 »

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…

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 overruns by these private companies caused the BBC to bring the project in-house. It could be argued that the BBC lacked the capability to deliver the project on its own, but thats also a mistake found in the private sector.

[1] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9116470/IT_s_biggest_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Media_Initiative#Initia...

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

#29

Post by protomyth »

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…

> 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 foreign to the entity on it and doesn't value a companies existing workflow[2], or it requires thousands of developer hours to adapt.

1) oh, they keep using the new system, but their customers feel it

2) often a very successful workflow for the entity and its customers since the entity can now afford a multi-million dollar software package

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