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Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

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Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#71

Post by vannevar »

The author suffers from the common misconception that agile is a process for designing software. It is not. It is a process for implementing a design, while maintaining flexibility to feed implementation experience back up into the design process. It's this feedback that the author's process lacks. FTA: "This [process] will take a few months, but when it is done we will know exactly what we have to build." Most of the time, experience has shown this not to be true; only when you've gotten into the implementation do you know what you 'have to' build (within some reasonable timeframe). That's because large software projects are typically nonlinear complex systems, where small implementation details can sometimes have large design consequences.

There is no prohibition in agile from using UML, and the process is certainly not hostile to design. It may be that some people believe that using agile implementation processes relieves them of the responsibility to design their software, and that it's OK for user stories to be generated off the top of their heads without analysis. Those people are mistaken. Nowhere does agile promise to design your system for you.

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#72

Post by gesman »

The most successful, most praised by clients, most robust, most stable and most financially profitable applications I took part at were written by professionals using "waterfall" methods. This were absolutely not a test-driven development but rather strategies i personally developed that resulted in the most stable and bug free deployments.

These were security applications, real time data backup and mirroring services.

Agile in the wrong hands (or heads) doesn't work and in many cases is just a buzzword.

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#73

Post by trentmb »

djillionsmix wrote: post #51
trentmb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's very annoying to read. EDIT: To clarify, his style is incredibly annoying.

Annoying to people who don't like that he's correct

Right or not isn't the point. It's painful to read because it's a grown man that writes like a 10 year old that learned a couple of dirty words.

I cringe in embarrassment on his behalf: http://zedshaw.com/#/fuck

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#74

Post by droopybuns »

lttlrck wrote: post #50
droopybuns wrote: post #24

I would love to know what version control software was implemented throughout the project. I suspect that the answer is none. But if I'm wrong, it'd be interesting to know what tools they tried to use and where there processes worked, if they ever worked at all.

Why do you suspect they used no version control?

it just seems that there has been no structure at all to their responses to the downtime.

I am perhaps naive in my belief that they at some point had a combonatorial solution that worked at scale.

so i am waiting for someone to say "we are rolling out a leaner version of the site till the other more major issues are worked out."

Instead, it feels like the only bathroom at the mall has something vile leaking under a door marked "out of order."

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#75

Post by droopybuns »

GhotiFish wrote: post #55
jroseattle wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you suspect that version control wasn't in use? Is there an aspect of this project that would be resolved with a specific version control system? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm genuinely curious why you're asking.

A guess at his line of thinking: People, who didn't understand the development processes programmers use, caught a wiff of agile. They mandated agile, but only established the methodology, with no technical direction to back it up. So in the arena of VCS the novice teams didn't use anything (they didn't know better), teams with some experienced devs were ignored, or used their own VCS. a symptom of a more systemic pr…

it just seems that there has been no structure at all to their responses to the downtime. I am perhaps naive in my belief that they at some point had a combonatorial solution that worked at scale. so i am waiting for someone to say "we are rolling out a leaner version of the site till the other more major issues are worked out." Instead, it feels like the only bathroom at the mall has something vile leaking under a door marked "out of order."

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#76

Post by pkolaczk »

Having observed a few big projects failed like that in my country, I can't deny the feeling that "throw big money onto company/institute(s) X to deliver a very big system that will replace the old system on day Y" is an awesome recipe for a spectacular failure, regardless of the software development process and skills of the programmers. Eventually the initial failure would be converted into something usable by spending 10x more money and 10x more time.

Contrary, a minority of national-level projects that succeeded here were always almost things that were initially planned to be very small, experimental, with no hard deadline and implemented without a big-bang in media. The biggest distinction is that the small systems tend to be put in production only partially but much earlier, often as an opt-in, working in parallel to the old often paperwork based systems. So there was no huge switch to something new and the risk was pretty small. This is what agile means to me.

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#77

Post by hga »

gesman wrote: post #72

The most successful, most praised by clients, most robust, most stable and most financially profitable applications I took part at were written by professionals using "waterfall" methods. This were absolutely not a test-driven development but rather strategies i personally developed that resulted in the most stable and bug free deployments. These were security applications, real time data backup and mirroring service…

Indeed. Especially if you really understand what you're trying to accomplish, waterfall can work just fine. Come to think of it, the most successful "greensfield" project I ever headed was essentially waterfall, in large part because I'd been designing it in my head for several years before, had implemented variations on many components in those years, and had figured out why everyone else who'd tried it had failed to a greater or lessor extent.

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#78

Post by [deleted] »

GhotiFish wrote: post #70
jroseattle wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's alarming. We need a real post-mortem on this process. The congressional inquisitions aren't getting to the root of the problem. We just need the individual who managed this project to explain, from square one, how the project flow went. (Believe it or not, I intend no sarcasm with this post.)

>(Believe it or not, I intend no sarcasm with this post.) that didn't help T.T

[deleted]

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#79

Post by jroseattle »

droopybuns wrote: post #75
GhotiFish wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A guess at his line of thinking: People, who didn't understand the development processes programmers use, caught a wiff of agile. They mandated agile, but only established the methodology, with no technical direction to back it up. So in the arena of VCS the novice teams didn't use anything (they didn't know better), teams with some experienced devs were ignored, or used their own VCS. a symptom of a more systemic pr…

it just seems that there has been no structure at all to their responses to the downtime. I am perhaps naive in my belief that they at some point had a combonatorial solution that worked at scale. so i am waiting for someone to say "we are rolling out a leaner version of the site till the other more major issues are worked out." Instead, it feels like the only bathroom at the mall has something vile leaking under a d…

I would agree. It's obvious they aren't architected for anything other than all-or-nothing, which I presume they are working to decouple a lot of things at the moment.

Re: Healthcare.gov failed despite agile practices

#80

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

hga wrote: post #61
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has lower life expectancy than Poland. It has lower life expectancy than any of the 19 developed nations. It has life expectancy at the level of developing Eastern European nations like Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, etc. At the same time US spends the biggest percentage of its GDP on healthcare. More than Germany does, more than France doesm more than UK does, more than Japan does. And people in France and Japan live…

" US has lower life expectancy.... " Talking point ignoring: Different countries can have different populations with markedly different health characteristics. That is, "race" in the sense of genetics; in the US, not just African-Americans but plenty of mestizos with a lot of Amerindian genes. Not that I know anything particular about what the latter brings to the table, just that it's sure to be different ... and, h…

Nonsense. Us was #1 in life expectancy. This year it is on place 51. It's not like racial mix-up in the US changed so much since 1960s that you suddenly dropped 50 places. It's been a process.

Of course, you might have bright spots here and there. Like premature babies are so common for women after 30s and 40s that sure you have to do something about once women started to work and be pregnant much later in life. It's not like we need it as much in Poland where still majority of pregnancies is for women in their 20s.

All I'm saying you are 51 on the list. You may have all kinds of excuses for that, but it's very, very weak.

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