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> complete rebuild was necessary to ensure the website meets modern security... requirements > launch and security testing cost $12.6 million What are the challenging security concerns for a weather website? And why would testing alone cost $10+ million?
My recollection was ( could be wrong) - It was said in media that "security testing" was 12 million AU dollars
> It said the cost breakdown included $4.1 million for the redesign, $79.8 million for the website build, and the site's launch and security testing cost $12.6 million.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that the consulting firm seriously overbilled. To my knowledge rather consulting firms are great at selling the necessity of lots of consultants or consultant days: Just let the customer talk very openly about their wishes for the project, and you immediately get an insane scope explosion for the project, i.e. it "needs" an insane amount of consultants over many years to implement all these wishes. To increas…
You just do it at enterprise scale with all the people needed to make it enterprise legible... and a couple of setbacks and change orders later and you're at 2.5x the original budget!
"So every bit of that chain had to be hardened and made secure to stop a future attack taking down the whole website."...."
It's extraordinary how far departments (even large companies) will go to avoid in-sourcing work. $AU96M is a small team of developers hired, paid and pensioned for decades . Anyone rubber-stamping that sort of invoice deserves jail time.
In your team you have, 3 data scientists that have never worked on a software project, an intern who likes computer games and a PM that used to work in the tax department.
This is a 12 month project, everyone needs to also do their own job and if it’s late, they’re coming for all of us in next years budget.
What would you do? The correct answer is to pay an external consultancy to take the heat and an external team to get the right people needed to get it done.
It's extraordinary how far departments (even large companies) will go to avoid in-sourcing work. $AU96M is a small team of developers hired, paid and pensioned for decades . Anyone rubber-stamping that sort of invoice deserves jail time.
Ok great, in-source the project but we’ve been promised a yearly headcount increase of exactly 0. Any hires above that require the minister to sign off. In your team you have, 3 data scientists that have never worked on a software project, an intern who likes computer games and a PM that used to work in the tax department. This is a 12 month project, everyone needs to also do their own job and if it’s late, they’re c…
But there is a third option: don't build the bloody website.
I cannot fathom this. What an egregious waste of (assumed) public money. Surely someone can request to see where this went? Even the original figure of $4.1m is insane.
Hopefully they'll go through all billed invoices with a microscope. My guess is that this will reveal outright fraud from the consulting firm(s), in the form of overbilling in hours. Even if they bill $500/hr, and they billed 24 hours a day, that would come out to $4.38m / year for each consultant. That's a 11 member team billing 24 hours a day, all year round, for two years straight. And if they billed more realisti…
See, usually you don't have 11 developers coding 24/7. What you usually have is project managers, account managers etc and then a few people who code every now and then. Then you have licenses and support costs. You can't just code the website, zip the code and mail it to the client. They have many stakeholders like this person needs to be able to show this that persin needs to be able to access this etc because they…
I cannot fathom this. What an egregious waste of (assumed) public money. Surely someone can request to see where this went? Even the original figure of $4.1m is insane.
Why? Its 4.1m AUD. Given the salary of devs and the scope of such a website, the original budget seemed pretty optimistic.
Devs are shocked to hear that their 500k salary makes the project cost more than a 50k they think it is worth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok great, in-source the project but we’ve been promised a yearly headcount increase of exactly 0. Any hires above that require the minister to sign off. In your team you have, 3 data scientists that have never worked on a software project, an intern who likes computer games and a PM that used to work in the tax department. This is a 12 month project, everyone needs to also do their own job and if it’s late, they’re c…
I'm not defending the ridiculous politicking about government hiring. I agree, it's a blocker to rational thought. But there is a third option: don't build the bloody website.
I’ve been through this myself as the software developer who’s contract ends on Tuesday but with a company wide hiring freeze causing the general manager to have to call the global dept manager, someone in charge of 25k people, to personally sign off on extending the summer intern into a full timer.
As for not building the website, that’s fine but it will be more expensive tomorrow.