NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project • Hacker News Board

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#51

Post by zaidf » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 12:48 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #44

gnaritas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400 man hours to decide to replace a logo, big difference. That's what you get when you design by committee.

Exactly right. Replacing the logo itself took all of about 30 minutes (receive new picture, digitally retouch, overlay onto background image, resize, play around with transparency, save to png.) Also, bear in mind, the 400 hours is 400 man-hours, which is a cumulative number based on the number of people involved. If you've never done business with government, let me assure you, it was a lot more people than necessar…

Absolutely. The man hours can easily pile up when you do a conf call with a half dozen folks where majority of them are on mute 90% of the time.

I recently did contract work for an agency and had instances where a simple spacing or image resizing took days of work because the client or the agency would understand and then forget that I must crop and/or resize images for them all to be of one size.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#52

Post by vaksel » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 12:58 AM UTC

that seems a little excessive even at 63 million...I'd bet if you gave a YC startup $1 million, they'd be able to do the project in 1 year.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#53

Post by josephcooney » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 1:02 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #29

kenjackson wrote: post #5

CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade. From $63M to $600M? I would have thought that ppl may have noticed when the costs doubled or tripled the budget. Almost 10x the original budget? That type of oversight must go pretty high up.

I've been on the wrong end of a couple of projects like this, and in my experience (not necessarily indicative of this case) the customer can be VERY at fault. I've been dragged into 'feature acceptance meetings' that literally dragged out for weeks when testing of a new chat component devolved into a days-long discussion on whether the graphic in the header (provided by the customer) was appropriate. The unspoken is…

This plus 10. The government projects I've worked on were all like this on a macro and micro level.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#54

Post by cheez » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 1:30 AM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #5

CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade. From $63M to $600M? I would have thought that ppl may have noticed when the costs doubled or tripled the budget. Almost 10x the original budget? That type of oversight must go pretty high up.

I think there were kickbacks.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#55

Post by joe_the_user » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 2:37 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #29

kenjackson wrote: post #5

CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade. From $63M to $600M? I would have thought that ppl may have noticed when the costs doubled or tripled the budget. Almost 10x the original budget? That type of oversight must go pretty high up.

I've been on the wrong end of a couple of projects like this, and in my experience (not necessarily indicative of this case) the customer can be VERY at fault. I've been dragged into 'feature acceptance meetings' that literally dragged out for weeks when testing of a new chat component devolved into a days-long discussion on whether the graphic in the header (provided by the customer) was appropriate. The unspoken is…

Great stories...

... it's just the article notes a subcontractor has already been convicted of fraud and kickbacks, so this might not have been a project quite like the projects you describe (though if this is a Terry Childs-type case, I'd love to hear about it).

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#56

Post by wglb » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 2:40 AM UTC

tkahn6 wrote: post #6

bluedanieru wrote: post #2

Michael Bloomberg might have a point, but he really isn't in a strong position to complain about shitty overpriced software. Glass houses and all that.

What position are you in to declare the Bloomberg terminal 'shitty overpriced software'?

The point of a bloomberg terminal is not the software, it is the data. The monthly fee is for a one-user license of the data that they provide, and it is quite vast.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#57

Post by bmelton » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 2:41 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #55

bmelton wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on the wrong end of a couple of projects like this, and in my experience (not necessarily indicative of this case) the customer can be VERY at fault. I've been dragged into 'feature acceptance meetings' that literally dragged out for weeks when testing of a new chat component devolved into a days-long discussion on whether the graphic in the header (provided by the customer) was appropriate. The unspoken is…

Great stories... ... it's just the article notes a subcontractor has already been convicted of fraud and kickbacks , so this might not have been a project quite like the projects you describe (though if this is a Terry Childs-type case, I'd love to hear about it).

Sorry, I meant to imply that that's just the way things are, however, after the realization that he'd been convicted, it's likely that whether he's done anything wrong on this particular project, he's drawn the scapegoat straw.

I meant to say those things, but got lost in typing so much other nonsense and trailed off. Thanks for bringing it up.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#58

Post by lylejohnson » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 3:07 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #31

kenjackson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timekeeping systems are actually extremely complicated. EXTREMELY sophisticated. The level of detail it takes to get one right is painstaking, and it is key to a city's survival. It's complex enough that you wouldn't understand it, nor would any auditor. For that reason, I just started a new startup company: TimeKeep NYC. We specialize in timekeeping software for NYC area cities. Looking for employees now, especially…

Have you already looked into DCAA compliance? If not, your system can't be used for any federal systems, and likely aren't available to be used by most state and municipal government agencies.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that kenjackson (grandparent post) was kidding about his new startup.

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#59

Post by c00p3r » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 3:25 AM UTC

Let me guess - it is Java EE 6? ^_^

Re: NYC mayor demands $600M refund on software project

#60

Post by harisenbon » Fri, Jul 01, 2011, 3:26 AM UTC

protagonist_h wrote: post #41

bmelton wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on the wrong end of a couple of projects like this, and in my experience (not necessarily indicative of this case) the customer can be VERY at fault. I've been dragged into 'feature acceptance meetings' that literally dragged out for weeks when testing of a new chat component devolved into a days-long discussion on whether the graphic in the header (provided by the customer) was appropriate. The unspoken is…

what? it took 400 man hours to replace a logo?

On a previous project for a very large automaker, it took me 5 full days plus a 1 week trip to 4 cities in China to change a single graphic. (The rational was that they wanted the client to talk directly with the engineers instead of having to go through all the corporate bureaucracy. So much for that. ;)

And then they changed it back to the original.