NYC Mayor Demands $600M Refund On Software Project

alphadogg writes "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is demanding that systems integrator Science Applications International Corporation reimburse more than $600 million it was paid in connection with the troubled CityTime software project, a long-running effort to overhaul the city's payroll system. 'The City relied on the integrity of SAIC as one of the nation's leading technology application companies to execute the CityTime project within a reasonable amount of time and within budget given the system's size and complexity,' Bloomberg wrote in a letter Wednesday to SAIC CEO Walter Havenstein. CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade."

Comments

Yeah

[mr1911]

Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.

Re:Yeah

[swamprat0129]

Isn't it customary to get customer approval on a project when the budget goes up 10x? I usually don't leave a blank check at the mechanic's shop...

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Tea Party much? Yes, scientists have a track record at NASA and at other government agencies of having an endless supply of public funds with which to spend, and the government has a history of throwing good money after bad. However such funds have paid off in spades in allowing the USA to lead the world in scientific research.

Re:Yeah

[Mongoose Disciple]

I was part of a software project for a fairly large city's government that successfully completed early and under budget.

Maybe that's the equivalent of lightning striking but it does happen at least sometimes.

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[drunkle j]

It's about time someone is calling out a company on their massive budget overrun. The SOP of underbidding contracts just to get them, knowing full well that you can just ignore the budget is nothing more than systemic fraud.

Why they decided to pay $600M and then ask for a refund is a bit perplexing.

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[PickyH3D]

You do not sound like an incompetent bureaucrat that wants to turn around and blame the contractor if anything goes wrong, all-the-while both changing and adding requirements throughout the project.

With that said, I would hope that SAIC could have bought a company that already makes time management software on the desired scale for a fraction of the current cost. Maybe even for a portion of the original $63 million estimate.

I am not sure what is so special about a city that they need their own unique time management system. It's not like there aren't a bajillion in existence already ranging from overly simple to extremely complex. While I'm sure they need the extremely complex region, it really should have been handed to a company with experience in the arena already to either purchase an existing product, or add required features to one.

There I go thinking about someone outside of the government. I'll move along now.

Re:Yeah

[Hatta]

What's your point? Holding these contractors accountable for promising more than they can deliver is the first step towards changing that. All government contractors should be sued if they overrun their budgets, otherwise they have no incentive not to.

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[PickyH3D]

Cherry pick much?

I love NASA. But to suggest that one good example, even when it itself is riddled with bad examples somehow means that the rest of the government runs like clockwork is both naive and, frankly, stupid.

There are plenty of other good examples, like the various national labs, which I would actually put above NASA in many ways. Still, ignoring the rest of the government and our almost unimaginable scale of overspending with a history of missing deadlines and budgets is over the top. Even for Slashdot.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning striking. You are lucky, can we swap jobs? Every city government project I've ever worked on (every project that I've worked on in the last 10 years) has gone late and over budget. The biggest problem that I have is that, before the ink on the contract is even dry, the city changes, or "refines" requirements. Constantly shifting goalposts makes it much harder to finish.

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[Anonymous Coward]

How could you possibly go this sideways on a pretty basic premise?

Nobody said NASA gets a budget that's too big. He said that government projects always run over on time and money to a point of absurdity. And he's right.

There's no RvD argument here, science hating, etc. It was a "duh" observation, that's all.

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[DAldredge]

It isn't shocking that cutting edge research and development sometimes fails

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[grimmjeeper]

I'm not going to defend SAIC at all. However, if you're going to call out the company on the overruns, you also need to call out everyone else responsible as well.

The reason it's SOP to underbid the contract is that it's the only way to actually win the contract. Government entities award the contract based on the bid. They don't care that there's no way in hell their sprawling (and ever changing) requirements will drive the cost well past the original bid by several orders of magnitude. They don't care, and I doubt they even know, what it really takes to build a large and complex computer system like that.

Sure, there's probably a lot of waste in that cost overrun. And I'm sure it has its share of incompetence among the development staff. But the real incompetence starts with the customer who doesn't have a clue what they're asking for or how much it's really going to cost to make it. And then half way through the project, some other bureaucrat shows up and has to change everything that the previous stuffed shirt asked for so they can have it their way, completely wonking up the schedule.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I was part of a software project for a fairly large city's government that successfully completed early and under budget.

Maybe that's the equivalent of lightning striking but it does happen at least sometimes.

Or the city person who negotiated the contract was acting ethically and in the interests of the city?

I'm not making any accusations against the parties mentioned above, but we've all heard about "side deals" and whatnot being struck, not only in Government but in industry too.

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[Kjella]

Probably a combination of several things. First of all it's probably been a disconnect between the tactical operation of the project (let's approve of budget increase to get enhancements x and y, consulting help to solve problem z and so on) and the strategical operation (should this project be red-flagged and halted/abandoned). You'd be surprised how many organizations really lack that emergency brake and when the train wreck finally happens everybody wonders why it wasn't stopped before.

The second part is that for the most part projects aren't a scandal until they're officially scrapped. That means that in very political organizations you're looking to finish it somehow to back out gracefully. This leads to a high willingness to throw good money after bad, particularly if some of the key decision makers now hold high places in the organization. The only exception to this is when the new boss wants to deliberately throw the old boss' projects under the bus.

And finally since this is turning into criminal investigations and all, they probably sailed under false flag. You can string a client along pretty far if you have absolutely no ethics and make business cases that are utterly false yet plausible. They were probably given a lot of good lies about the system being right around the corner to working and a lot of good excuses for why it'd take just a little more money. At least if the City's project manager was a wimp - and he was either that or corrupt too.

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[trout007]

Did this city have public unions where your software was threatening their jobs?

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[trout007]

Good idea. But the government would have to write one set of requirements and not change them.

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[PopeRatzo]

Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.

Except in this case, it's the private contractor that didn't get the job done.

In a $600 million contract, there are performance guarantees. This outfit didn't meet them and now they've got to pay up.

And they say it's the teachers' union that's so overpaid. $600 million for a payroll system?

This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government. I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets of private contractors who overran costs and then didn't perform up to expectations.

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[Hatta]

The reason it's SOP to underbid the contract is that it's the only way to actually win the contract

Make lawsuits for budget overruns SOP, and that practice completely disappears.

Seriously. Put it in the state constitution that all government contracts will be completed on time and under budget or we get our money back.

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[mcavic]

I know governments always blow projects out of proportion. But I'm pretty sure I could design and implement a payroll system of any size for less than $5 million. This is either a case of a software company that doesn't know how to manage people, or a government that doesn't know what they want. The latter shouldn't be a problem if the software company knows what they're doing.

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[Anonymous Coward]

True, and I'm sure there's going to be a, "read your f'ing contract, asshole" response here.

Though honestly, going from $63M to $600M isn't something "going wrong". That's a level of corruption and incompetence for the record books, and probably spans responsibilities of both SAIC management and the city.

This is one of those situations where heads should roll, both in government and project management at the contractor.

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[mr1911]

This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government.

Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.

I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets of private contractors who overran costs and then didn't perform up to expectations.

It depends on how you define overruns. Many government contracts are for projects that are large and complex to the point they cannot be completely defined before the work starts. If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.

Bloomberg should be suing his contracting managers. I'm quite sure SAIC did not bill a dime until they had a contract to bill against.

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[MightyMartian]

Hardly unique to munipal governments or any governments. When I was in the coder-for-hire business, despite my best efforts to nail down requirements and expectations and getting them signed in the contract I would still get barraged with "yes, but when we said we wanted feature A, we also wanted A-1 and A-2." This wasn't from any government contract but from relatively small businesses.

I'm glad I don't do that kind of work any more, but I did learn in the long run how to say "No", even when money was waved in front of my face. I would insist that I keep to the schedule and feature set and then once that was done we could talk about additions or changes. I had two of my first contracts cost me probably a couple of grand in my time above the contract and only recouped a portion of it.

What I don't get about this one, having done some non-coding contract work for local government is why even an entity as big as New York would need to start from the ground up. There are a number of scalable payroll and accounting systems out there that would probably cost less than the 60-odd million initially budgeted.

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[mcavic]

Denault and Bell were charged with were charged with taking kickbacks, wire fraud and money laundering.

Okay, that should have been in the summary. It was a case of money siphoning, not just mismanagement. But still:

Some 71 consultants on the project will be let go, according to the agreement. Another 83 will be kept

83 consultants? Come on.

Re:Yeah

[mr1911]

The latter shouldn't be a problem if the software company knows what they're doing.

Really? If you get paid to deliver to specifications, but the specifications are poorly defined, not defined, or keep changing, how do you intend to meet your deliverable?

We all like to point fingers at the contractor, but this is more than likely a case of:
City: We know we asked for A, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want B.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $X more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $X and a couple of years to the contract.
A couple of years later...
City: We know we asked for B, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want C.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $y more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $y and a couple of years to the contract.
rinse, lather, repeat

Project is late and over budget. Damn contractors.

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[PopeRatzo]

Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.

No wonder we have a huge deficit.

If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.

It's only the vendor's fault if he does not perform. It doesn't sound like SAIC performed.

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[Americano]

And guarantee that nobody, anywhere, will ever bid on government contracts, at any price short of extortionary? These companies have to extract system requirements from the government workers - I'd say the fault lies equally with people inside the government who don't understand what they need, and people inside SAIC low-balling every estimate. There's lots of blame to go around at SAIC, and the NY government.

It also doesn't help that two people (Padma & Reddy Allen) who run TechnoDyne, one of SAIC's subs on this project, also are charged with skimming somewhere between 40 and 90 million dollars off the payments the city made, and at least 2 other people have also been indicted for kickbacks and other fraud. This isn't just a case of normal stupidity and scope creep causing project overruns - this is active criminal behavior, for which numerous people are being charged.

This demand that SAIC repay at least some of the money to the city is probably pretty reasonable in light of the fact that SAIC's controls & vetting of its subcontractors failed so spectacularly.

You can read some more about the sordid details here: http://www.businessinsider.com/reddy-padma-allen-citytime-2011-6

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[Nadaka]

Ok, every sane Architect will either walk away without making a bid or ask for 10 times the time and money that he actually expects. Most projects come in late and over budget, even ones that were well estimated, planned and executed from the start will do so somewhat with some frequency.

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[ffreeloader]

A few of those heads should roll right into jail, and the mayor should be demanding that too. The attitude that corruption should be dealt with casually is very destructive.

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[Kjella]

As if the US hasn't got enough lawsuits. The thing is, it's far from always that it's the contractor that's delaying a project. I've met clients where I couldn't have beaten the requirements out of them with a wrench, they just haven't got them. I think the worst case I've ever seen was a workshop, called extra because they needed to "understand the problem better" with a clear agenda, 10 people in the room including pretty much the whole core group - and their responsibility to call in specialists if needed, though I don't see how it would be necessary - and one of them manages to say "We can't make a decision on this" on one of the core points of the agenda. If I had a temper, I'd just called off the workshop there and then but I just sighed and moved on with my agenda adding another point to the endless "no decision reached" list.

Re:Yeah

[Americano]

No wonder we have a huge deficit.

This argument only holds weight if we assume that government employees are qualified and capable of managing a project of this size and scope for less money than the private contractors' bid. We have a huge deficit because we keep spending like a piss-drunk sailor, without any regards for how much money the government actually has in its pocket - unless you're arguing that the government could do all of the work it outsources to private firms today for less money in-house, I'm not sure what your point is.

It's only the vendor's fault if he does not perform. It doesn't sound like SAIC performed.

Agreed, and Bloomberg is completely correct in trying to recoup some of the city's losses. However, it's also worth noting that there's way more than simple "management incompetence" at work here - indictments have already been filed against numerous people working on the project for defrauding the city out of millions of dollars. I suspect we'll find a lot of blame that can be shared around between SAIC and its subcontractors, and city officials.

See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576398100826124240.html for a fairly thorough writeup on what investigators have uncovered so far.

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[bennomatic]

Sigh. I once wrote a web-based payroll system for a large temp agency. Dozens of offices in six or eight states, so it was no small matter. They even upped the bid to get higher priority in my queue (I had to push back some other projects), and I didn't even walk away with six figures. I guess my integrity outweighs my business sense. $600M indeed.

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[Voyager529]

In fairness (I can't believe I'm defending a governing body fairly local to me), yes, these systems DO exist - today. If this project has been running for the past ten years, then the question becomes "did these systems exist somewhere in the 2000-2001 timespan?". It's like calling for heads when a company spent millions on developing custom devices for mobile security camera monitoring for a government insitution. Yes, in 2011, we have apps on our cell phones and relatively inexpensive tablets (on a government scale) to implement a mostly-off-the-shelf solution. The executive VP at my company can watch the security cameras anywhere he wants on his iPhone with his 3G data plan, but to have done that in 2001 would have been almost unthinkable (remember, in 2001 802.11b was JUST coming to market, and cellular data was as expensive as it was slow).

Re:Yeah

[icebike]

You don't have to postulate corruption to see this kind of thing at this scale.

All you have to do is give every little section chief in every backwater bureau of city government an opportunity to make their own little demands for special treatment. Get the unions involved and all bets are off.

Rolling Requirements are the usual cause of such expansions, not corruption.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Did this city have public unions where your software was threatening their jobs?

The NYC project was for an overhaul of an already-existing payroll system, i.e. the city's payroll was already computerized. Besides, it appears as though the city was taken advantage of by SAIC ... which probably doesn't have any union representation among its employees ('cept maybe the IFPTE). So, why the ad hominem attack against unions?

Re:Yeah

[HungryHobo]

A piece of advice I was once given by an old coder:

"If you ever do contract work for government make a special effort to cover your arse because you'll be blamed when something goes wrong no matter what.

Especially if it's their fault. "

Re:Yeah

[PopeRatzo]

This argument only holds weight if we assume that government employees are qualified and capable of managing a project of this size and scope for less money than the private contractors' bid.

Compare the cost of US military troops in Iraq vs contractor personnel in Iraq.

If we can handle a moon landing, the invasion of Normandy, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam, and the Manhattan Project, I'm pretty sure we can handle putting together a payroll system.

Here in Chicago, we had a public parking system that was hugely profitable, convenient and cheap. It was sold to a private company over a year ago to cover a budget shortfall arising out of the real estate crash and now parking fees have gone up 1600%, you are limited to 2 hours (in order to increase violations) and the privately hired enforcement workers are rude, ignorant and obnoxious. Sundays and holidays are no longer free. The situation is so bad that businesses along major streets are suffering because people don't want to deal with it. The public operation was far superior to the private one.

Oh, and the private outfit that manages parking says they cannot make a profit even with the 1600% increase, so they're going to be raising parking prices yet again. The prices are so high that they had to take out the parking meters and put in these big machines that take credit cards (but not dollar bills). Oh, and the machines are always broken (which does not prevent you from being fined for not paying).

Governments can certainly handle large, complex projects and do it more efficiently than the private sector. When you take out the 20-100% (minimum) profit margins that privateers add, it's not even close.

Say, how well are those private space exploration companies doing? I'm sure by now they must have mines set up on Mars.

Profit is not all it's cracked up to be.

Re:Yeah

[dakameleon]

Seriously. Put it in the state constitution that all government contracts will be completed on time and under budget or we get our money back.

That's usually taken care of by penalty clauses - the original contract is scheduled for 12 months, say, with a 3 month grace for expected overruns. Anything beyond 3 months is penalised at a rate of 1% of project cost per week.

(at least those were approximations of the terms of a contract I worked on. Let's just say there was a fair incentive to get the product done & accepted at the 14 month mark.)

Re:Yeah

[tyrione]

Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.

The irony that you're missing is this is a Private Corporation who can't get it's crap together and complete a Public Works project, on time and within the budget constraints. So much for the private sector. Perhaps we can stop these broad brush strokes and come to reality, by focusing on efficiency and the quality of solution [public or private] in joint partnerships, instead of the same toothless talking points. We call that growing up.

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[GaryOlson]

Cutting edge research and development never fails. But, it may develop processes and results which are contra-indicated to the stated objective.

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[icebike]

Been there, done that, still have the tee shirt.

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[grapeape]

$63 million to $600 million isnt going over budget, its running a scam. What is more perplexing than the current actions is that the govt allowed things to get that out of hand, in most cases when a project goes over budget by more than about 25% there are questions to answer and more often than not firings, beyond that and fraud is brought into question...this should have been figured out about $500 million ago.

Re:Yeah

[grimmjeeper]

Make lawsuits for budget overruns SOP, and that practice completely disappears.

Seriously. Put it in the state constitution that all government contracts will be completed on time and under budget or we get our money back.

So you basically want to guarantee that not one company ever bids on a government contract ever again? BRILLIANT!

I suppose you'd find the odd contractor who would make an estimate and multiply it by a factor of 20 so they would have a hope of finishing it under budget and on time. So with a lot of margin like that, you'd virtually guarantee that the work would be padded to exactly wring out every last dime. But then you'd still have to deal with the government types constantly changing requirements up to the last minute and expecting you to be on time or face huge lawsuits.

Yeah, I think you'd find more people at an Art Garfunkel comeback tour show than you would find people to bid on government contracts. Absolutely brilliant solution there my friend...

Re:Yeah

[grimmjeeper]

As long as there were riders in the contract stipulating that any significant change in the project requirements would extend the contract or result in a renegotiation of the contract, you might have something there. Of course, the initial requirements would have to be written into the contract to ensure the scope of work doesn't change. And if whole parts of work already done have to be scrapped, the customer absolutely needs to be responsible for those costs. It's not the contractor's fault that they did work in good faith that the customer didn't feel like buying when it was already done.

Even so, you may end up with a situation where you get huge overruns because the whole contract negotiation and follow up was a huge fuster cluck. And at some point the company will just fold up their tents and walk rather than deal with excessive penalties. It's not hard to declare bankruptcy and walk away from your obligations. If the company knows of the potential for serious penalties, they'll structure themselves just for that contingency ahead of time.

Sadly, there is no real solution. Governments want 10 times as much for less than half the cost. The only way to get the contract is to under bid everyone else who is also under bidding. If you don't do it, you don't get the contracts and you go out of business. Penalties don't really work when the company can just dissolve rather than paying them. And then you're stuck with no money and no deliverable Holding anyone on the government side accountable just isn't going to happen. Government flunkies are never truly held accountable for their failure because they have the company to blame. There's just no way to win here. It's why I got out of government contract work and will never go back if I can help it.

Re:Yeah

[grimmjeeper]

I think there's more hope for Middle East peace than a government project that doesn't have changes in requirements.

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[SecurityGuy]

The reason it's SOP to underbid the contract is that it's the only way to actually win the contract.

Having worked in the federal contracting space for about a decade, this simply isn't true. It may be true in some areas, but contracts are won and profitable without underbidding.

That said, a host of people should be out of jobs over this. The notion that anyone, anywhere thought that over HALF A BILLION DOLLARS was a reasonable price for a $#@%@ timekeeping system is beyond outrageous.

Re:Yeah

[AK Marc]

The reason it's SOP to underbid the contract is that it's the only way to actually win the contract. Government entities award the contract based on the bid. They don't care that there's no way in hell their sprawling (and ever changing) requirements will drive the cost well past the original bid by several orders of magnitude.

That's still criminal fraud on the part of SAIC. If you know you can't do it for the number quoted, to sign a contract saying you can is fraud. To use improper change control procedures in order to take advantage of a client to make an end run around the contract is fraud. There's almost nothing I can think of that would have SAIC not guilty of fraud.

Not that this excuses any actions by the government. They were incompetent at best, and felonious co-conspirators at the worst. But no likely actions by the city excuse SAIC spending so much more than the contract.

Re:Yeah

[Lost Race]

Why they decided to pay $600M and then ask for a refund is a bit perplexing.

The sunk cost dilemma sucks you in and drags you along, potentially forever.

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[AK Marc]

Then the contractor should be able to prove in court that they were ordered to accept more money and to not finish parts in the original bid. If there isn't a clear paper trail following the contracted change control system, then they committed fraud. If there isn't a change control system specified and they didn't deliver on the original contract, regardless of what's documented after, they committed fraud. However, since a number of subcontractors are already being charged with embezzlement (or other charges to that effect), we have illegal activity. The only question is whether SAIC was criminally liable as well, and I can see no scenario where they aren't.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

The mayor actually maintained there was no fraud until just a couple of days ago, despite 11 people being indicted over the past few months.

Re:Yeah

[roman_mir]

Compare the cost of US military troops in Iraq vs contractor personnel in Iraq.

- excuse me? Since when is a for-profit war supposed to spend less money rather than more money on private contracts?

Are you suggesting that outfits like Blackwater are not enjoying very close government relations and are not treated like a monopoly and are not cycling the money back to various politicians' campaigns and private hands to be part of that racket?

If we can handle a moon landing, the invasion of Normandy, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Hoover Dam, and the Manhattan Project, I'm pretty sure we can handle putting together a payroll system.

- are you saying that all those things were cost-averse? I mean, 'invasion of Normandy' and Moon Landing (which was largely funded by SS money, BTW.)

The only reason to have government is to provide military protection and with wars that have a clear stated objective and that are supported largely by the entire nations, the cost-overruns are totally looked over.

As to things like 'payroll systems' - any government contract will be milked out of as much cash as that branch of government can shell out to the maximum by whoever gets the contract.

Here in Chicago, we had a public parking system that was hugely profitable, convenient and cheap.

- yeah, like post office and US military and Medicare are 'hugely profitable, convenient and cheap'.

Government doesn't have to report to you the real costs, the money that is spent on administration and maintenance and all other costs (never mind not having to pay actual taxes), are spread around multiple government offices, hiding the true costs, and the true costs are taxes and destruction of economy and currency.

Oh, and the private outfit that manages parking says they cannot make a profit even with the 1600% increase, so they're going to be raising parking prices yet again.

- I'd be looking into their ties to the government, that sold them the property.

Governments can certainly handle large, complex projects and do it more efficiently than the private sector. When you take out the 20-100% (minimum) profit margins that privateers add, it's not even close.

- nonsense. They can handle large complex projects simply because they have all the money in the world, which they can borrow and print and tax, not because they are more efficient magically. Efficiencies come out of search for more profit.

You see, to have efficiency you must be looking for profit. If you are not looking for profit, then the difference between your expense and your revenue is irrelevant, so why would you be looking for efficiencies? It makes no sense. And government accounting practices are not different from Enron and Madoff's accounting practices, as government can make all sorts of 'projections', making all sorts of assumptions about the future but it is never called out when all of those assumptions fail (and they do fail).

Just like their rosy assumptions that interest rates will stay low for years to come - total nonsense.

Say, how well are those private space exploration companies doing? I'm sure by now they must have mines set up on Mars.

- maybe, if government wasn't eating all the credit, wasn't mis-allocating all of the resources, wasn't taxing and regulating business out of business, maybe if governments wasn't subsidizing all sorts of large monopolies in energy and mining (and banking and insurance and manufacturing and agriculture and pharma and health and communications and war and education), if gov't wasn't doing all of that with money it steals from actual producers, then companies would find a case for such operations, which are clearly nonsense based on today's reality.

Government does things not because it's more efficient, it does things because it controls the money.

Re:Yeah

[Lazareth]

I honestly don't believe the mayor would demand his own head rolling into jail, that would be quite optimistic to see an incompetent official admit he bolloxed it like that.

Re:Yeah

[mick_S3]

Clearly the problem was the contractor didn't have enough PMPs involved in the effort. . /sarcasm off

Re:Yeah

[rednip]

Do you think that corporate programs work better? There are those who would seem to push a political agenda that government workers are incompetent whenever it suit them, but the reality is that all groups of humans have various 'issues'. I would argue that entrenched interests form even tighter bonds in corporate systems, but civil service reform (if you knew the history, you'd know why it was needed) makes it tougher to clean them out once identified. As jobs, people and conditions change over time, the labor force of any organization takes 'gooming' and realignment, however there is always a stream of people who claim that they are the ones who can 'clean it up'. Personally, I can't recall the last politician who didn't promise to 'clean up Washington', or something like that; seems to me that it's the most broken campaign promise ever. Only a would be executive's promise to 'manage expenses' could be a more often futile narrative.

Re:Yeah

[Hognoxious]

How many temp agency workers are members of unions, with the attendant quirks and privileges? How many of them formed cliques and special interest groups with differing and competing goals.

Every time a subject like this comes up there's a dozen twerps who've written tinpot systems for mom and pop outfits claiming they could have done it for tuppence.

I'm not saying the project wasn't a clusterfuck, but it's not as simple as some naÃve individuals seem to think.

Re:Yeah

[Rich0]

Indeed, I've worked in companies where the sunk cost dilemma was essentially planned in by the project management.

Project gets green light and millions in budget. Two weeks later order is placed for millions in hardware and software licenses - all very difficult or impossible to sell/return.

Later in year corporate management goes through their regular routine of deciding to reduce budgets for the year - project escapes being cut since most of its money was already spent, and the investment is worthless unless the project runs to completion.

Project then drags on for an extra year or so, and it turns out half the hardware was unnecessary. By the time much of the hardware enters production it is obsolete, failing often, and even the subject of a vendor recall or two.

Now, anybody who cares about financial stewardship would defer buying hardware (beyond the minimum necessary for development/testing) until close to the launch date, since it does no good in a closet and just depreciates the entire time. That money would have earned considerable interest if simply placed in a bank account (probably one person's salary for the year).

However, since jobs are always on the line when projects get cut, it is in the personal interest of a project team to safeguard the life of the project without much regard for the financial well-being of the company. Management tendency to approve money and then later yank it away also doesn't help.

I'm sure in the end we'll find out that everybody was involved in making this boondoggle what it is - outsourced IT deals like this are loaded with conflicts of interest...

Re:Yeah

[smooth wombat]

Thank you. I was thinking the same thing.

Though I am trying to move into that area from my current support role, the vast majority of people want to see that little piece of paper which claims you know what you're doing despite PMI's own statistics which show that roughly 70% of projects fail.

Which then begs the question: if that many projects are considered a failure, does that mean many PMPs don't know what they're doing and PMI is simply handing out paper, or is the training and such that PMI produces not worth squat?

Re:Yeah

[Rich0]

Except in this case, it's the private contractor that didn't get the job done.

In a $600 million contract, there are performance guarantees. This outfit didn't meet them and now they've got to pay up.

Well, I don't know the details of this particular case, but when big IT projects like this go south it is usually the result of nobody being accountable for the result. I wouldn't be surprised if the lawsuit goes nowhere (even if local courts favor the state, federal courts will probably overturn them) - unless there is some obvious smoking gun.

Typically the contractor has no real incentive to make the project a success - the contracts are drawn up that they will deliver a system that does X, Y, and Z - defined fairly precisely in the form of requirements. They then spend a bunch of money and the system generally ends up doing X, Y, and Z. However, it may not be flexible or user-friendly, and fail to meet a bazillion other unwritten specifications. It will certainly contain bugs that come up in various situations. It will turn out that doing X, Y, and Z doesn't actually address the client's needs.

So, the contractor draws up a new contract to modify the software to do A, B, and C, and drop Y. Contract gets signed. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...

In the end the contractor probably followed the letter of the contract, because the contract wasn't about meeting the client's needs, but about delivering a very particular service.

However, everybody does get somebody else to point a finger at, so nobody gets punished. The managers running the whole project (both at the client and contractor) collected a paycheck the entire time and probably numerous bonuses for meeting various milestones. This just guarantees that they and others will do the same thing the next time a project comes along.

Having been on the client side of these engagements I've seen more than a few where the goal of the client lead on the project was just to have somebody else to blame when the project went south. Sure, the contractor eventually gets fired and replaced with a new one, and the client manager looks good for being tough on the vendor. In the end, however, the client still loses a lot of money.

Re:Yeah

[tehcyder]

If it's so awful and unprofessional working on fabulously lucrative contracts for government organisations, why do so many peple do it? Oh, wait, I think there's a clue in the first sentence.

Re:Yeah

[tehcyder]

The reason it's SOP to underbid the contract is that it's the only way to actually win the contract

Make lawsuits for budget overruns SOP, and that practice completely disappears.

Seriously. Put it in the state constitution that all government contracts will be completed on time and under budget or we get our money back.

That's totally impractical. If I bid for a government contract, and the government keep changing the requirements, do I have to just swallow the wasted time and money?
You would have to have a law that forbade any changes whatsoever to the initial contract, and that's not how real life works. The reason these things go over budget and over time is that you can't make entirely accurate predictions about extremely complex projects.

Re:Yeah

[PickyH3D]

That's a hard statement to disagree with. However, you can still show plenty of stupid failures. Even coming from NASA.

I doubt you've forgotten the problem with going from NASA's $330 million "metric mixup."

However, even with that, I agree with GaryOlson (the other poster) and that's why I like the labs and also NASA. Even from mistakes come lessons learned. Some are just a wee-bit expensive that shouldn't have been necessary.

Re:Yeah

[Geminii]

Perhaps incidents like this might encourage vendors and bidders not to underbid when they can't afford the fallout from failing to deliver?

Re:Yeah

[dakameleon]

Well, at 1% penalty a week it wasn't so onerous to think that it couldn't be achieved without making a bit of profit still with overruns. We did structure in clauses about requirements shifting, but I guess we were lucky in that things got defined pretty well up front, but without going into specifics the talk was that we could reach into 9 months (i.e. 6 months of penalties) and still at least recover costs. (and not to brag, but we had a rep to uphold).

That said, our client was a semi-public entity and we're both outside the US, so I don't know what it's like working with US Gov't departments.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way in the world a company could accurately estimate a $60m project and ensure no scope creep. This is another example where incrementaL specification, bidding and delivery should be in place, and allow for the inevitable change in requirements.

In Other News:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The Honorable Mayor Bloomberg is shocked, shocked, to discover fraud and waste going on here...

Re:In Other News:

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloomberg does know something about big-ticket enterprise software though.

Re:In Other News:

[Anonymous Coward]

Your winnings, sir.

SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[MagikSlinger]

Last time I heard of them, it was with the failed FBI casebook system. Does SAIC have a generally good delivery rate on projects otherwise?

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[memyselfandeye]

Nope. But they did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

to make sure that thousand dollar escort treated the Senator just right.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard of SAIC in connection with the America's Cup yacht races - often one of the syndicates will pull in SAIC (more precisely, one corner of the sprawling SAIC empire) to do engineering and simulation work. The yachtsman Dennis Connor gave them props after winning the Cup in 1987 and 1988.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting Anon, because people of interest may find this page.

I have worked with 4 SAIC employees/contractors. I found them to be mediocre. However, that's okay, because we needed a mediocre job done, and were going to pay them mediocre money to do it. They performed the job, and testing revealed about the normal amount of bugs (1 per week or so). My experience with them has been they they were astoundingly average, technically.

However, they were significantly above average in the other parts of the job. They made their software available for regular testing, were timely in delivery of monthly reports, showed initiative in going for above-and-beyond requirements (for extra money), were willing to work with us on emerging requirements, and put together a better-than-average cost estimate. The experience was pleasant overall, and the contract was 5% overbudget, and 10% behind schedule. Being a month late on a one-year project with emerging requirements is acceptable, and mostly our fault.

I would work with them again, but, in general, I wouldn't trust them to build any system from the ground up, as this requires real skill. Modification or maintenance is about where they belong.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the bungled Trailblazer Project.

Like every other megacorp, they are both evil and incompetent.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll share my view from having worked on a couple of projects for SAIC...

It was ingrained in us that we (developers, project managers, analysts, etc.) were to serve our customers and never disagree with them. Even if we thought that they were wrong or crazy. So while I, as a taxpayer, am very frustrated at all the poor decision making and bureaucracy inherent in working with the government, SAIC accountants don't care. They make money from the number of hours billed, not the quantity/quality of delivered products. In government projects like this, they don't hand you requirements, you go into a dark room for a year, and return with a product. For the most part, government contractors are simply an augmentation of government staff itself. Therefore while it looks like SAIC wasted the government's money, it's more accurate that the government wasted the money all on its own and SAIC was just there to help.

A good analogy is New York is a restaurant customer and SAIC is the waiter. The customer sits down and orders the soup and the waiter says that will be 10 dollars. Then the customer orders some wine, a salad, a steak, and cake. The bill comes totalling $100 and the customer says WTF you said it would be 10 dollars! I want my money back!

(First /. post in years, too lazy to lookup my password)

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[MagikSlinger]

That's the story I read from the post-mortem articles for FBI Virtual Case File system. I work for a global IT consulting company, and yeah, they're all about doing whatever the customer wants. No push back, please. :-) So SAIC isn't bad, per se, it's just that hiring SAIC is not a sufficient condition for project success. The clients still need their heads in the clear, open air instead of rammed upside their... posteriors. :-)

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[MrEricSir]

This year's America's Cup is sponsored by another company that makes shoddy, overpriced software -- Oracle.

I guess there's a connection between shady businesses and rich assholes who race yachts. Who ever would have guessed?

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[rpillala]

I'll wager that they were above average in their rate of having security clearances too. That's one major feature of the "Reinventing Government" era contracting companies. They supply security cleared personnel for whatever work you need.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked there for close to 8 years now (hence posting anonymous). The projects in our division are delivered within days of their deadline and under budget. The clients we have in the military constantly come back to us for work.

Saying SAIC's performance is "such and such" is kind of funny. When I first joined the company it was privately held by the employees until the founder stepped down and the board rushed to bring the company public. Before it went public, the company was like hundreds of little fiefdoms, each competing for projects sometimes even competing against themselves. It was not unusual for a project to have two bids from SAIC because two different parts of the company were bidding on it. After the public offering there were probably four or five reorganizations so that instead of hundreds of fiefdoms it's more like dozens. So are their divisions within the company that screw up? sure. It's hard to categorize the entire company because the divisions act independently of one another even if there are fewer of them now.

This particular project was run by a crook. He was clearly not managed by higher level management properly because the cost overruns alone should have raised a ton of red flags within his division. I imagine that since the project started before the reorgs his group got shuffled between divisions every 9 months or so (like almost every other group), and the people he reported to never had a clue what was going on. It reflects badly on the current CEO, but the blame lies with the last CEO (we've had two since going public) who shook the company up far more than he probably should have.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a good reason why they're not in the top 5. #7 might sound like a pretty good deal, but considering #1 gets 50% of all DoD contracts, they're small peas, and that has a lot to do with the quality of work they produce (speaking from defense contracting, which I have a good bit of experience in).

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[AK Marc]

More like the restaurant says "entrees $10" and you get a drink, appetizer, and desert to go along with that, and you find that you paid $100 when you'd think that an appetizer would cost less than the main dish, instead it costs twice as much.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not objecting to stupid requirements does mean that SAIC is bad. It is - or should be - a part of their job to inform their clients when those clients give bad requirements through cluelessness.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Rich0]

Yup, nothing like rotating management to ensure no accountability. I've seen projects where managers moved around - everybody declared success up until the point that the project failed, and the last manager gets to then blame the nebulous "predecessor" - where nobody specifically is named lest anybody be held accountable.

At work we've had re-orgs just about annually for the last 5-6 years, and moved to a model that is so matrixed that you might as well be a consultant. It tends to result in an organization where everybody is fairly detached from just about everything. If you do somebody a favor you can pretty-much guarantee that they'll never be in a position to help you back, so the only motivation to do it is to be nice. Nobody invests in training/developing anybody else - that is just a sunk cost from a personal standpoint. Managers don't have any interest in building their teams, since they will likely only manage them for a year. A manager has 12 reports one year, zero the next, and then 5 in two tiers the year after that.

My feeling is that the senior leaders are spending way too much time talking to consultants. Each one comes along and "revolutionizes" the company which will totally turn everything around. Some contrived metric is used to show that somehow the company is better off (usually by firing a few people and looking at payroll). In the end the organization ends up functioning like a consulting firm - with dynamic teams assigned to projects and everybody basically sinks and swims on their own. Not much attention gets paid to whether any work actually gets done. In fact, the goal is to align everybody to similar revolutionary projects and spend money on actually operating the business only when something really bad goes wrong...

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

See other comments, it depends on the SAIC robber barron running the contract; so I don't deny your experience. But, 4 out 46K is beyond insignificant for any purposes. It is sad when you read for news for ANY company, you don't get a good way to find out how many contracts were successfully delivered on. Easy to fnd awarded contracts, and fuckups.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[Geminii]

Interesting how all of their listed advantages were not in the field of software development, but in administration, paperwork, politics, red tape, and so on. And yet they still won the contract.

Makes me wonder just how many government agencies deliberately hire outside contractors not because they can do the job well, but because they are red-tape-crunching monsters who can do most of the job, to a reasonable degree, more or less, while being very good at speaking bureaucratese.

Re:SAIC ever have any successful projects?

[rpillala]

I would say a lot. Read Spies For Hire by Tim Shorrock. It's specifically about outsourcing of intelligence work, but SAIC, Booz Allen, General Dynamics, etc. come up often enough to generalize.

When the Cold War ended, intelligence agencies started trimming all the people who did that kind of analysis in favor of more high tech approaches. Then, 9/11 and those people were in demand again. Rather than come back to their old job at their old pay, they came back as independent contractors to their old job at triple the pay. This goes on now - people leave on Friday and return on Monday, with only their employment status changing. Add to this Mr. Clinton's "Reinventing Government" initiative wherein he privatized more of government than Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush (41) combined.

Time and Attendance

[DarkOx]

Nothing seems so simple as Time and Attendance software until you to write/consult on/implement Time and Attendance software.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Sectoid_Dev]

I interviewed at a place that sold Time and Attendance software and I about fell out of my chair when the interviewer casually mentioned that the memory footprint of their product was 2GB.

Re:Time and Attendance

[AdmiralXyz]

Nothing seems so simple as Time and Attendance software until you to write/consult on/implement Time and Attendance software.

Would you mind going into more detail as to why? I have to admit, this is one of those things I've always been curious about. It always seemed to me that this should be one of those things that any decent team can crank out in a year, yet I've heard disaster story after disaster story about software like this and so clearly there's something I'm missing here. Is the actual software more difficult to design than I thought, or is it the fact that these are usually government projects, with all the additional requirements therein?

Re:Time and Attendance

[flaming error]

And that's just the footprint...

Re:Time and Attendance

[lpp]

My little company does IT work for small local business, often playing liaison between them and their other vendors. Once I worked with a third party timekeeping software company to help onboard my client onto the system. I was like you, thinking "enter the hours on the day, done". I got to talking with one of the developers and, recognizing there must be some hidden complexity, politely broached the subject. He agreed that yes, it seems simple on the surface, and for a handful of cases it can be. But apparently where things can get bogged down is with adherence to local, state and federal regulations regarding various levels and types of compensation (overtime, sick time, holidays and the like) . He mentioned other issues too but that seemed to be the major bugbear.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Amouth]

server size sure.. client side... yea.......

Re:Time and Attendance

[drooling-dog]

I imagine that the willingness of the client to keep writing checks as long as it isn't done may have something to do with it...

Re:Time and Attendance

[trout007]

I don't have experience with this type of software but I am familiar with how governments work.
I've designed equipment to automate tasks that were done by government workers. If the software or equipment in any way threatens those jobs they stop you since their contracts give them that right. I've had to dumb down many systems because they were too efficient and required less people. One was designed to position a payload in a rocket. It used to take 20 something people with rulers hanging at the end of a platform calling out the distances. We replaced it with a system that used sensors to relay all of the information back to the control booth and had camera feeds from each location. It provided 10 times the accuracy as before. We couldn't get it approved since it eliminate so many man hours. Wht did we do to get it approved? We installed 20 emergency stop pendants so those people could still be required. By that time the project ran out of money and was canceled. And they kept doing it the old way.

Re:Time and Attendance

[mcmonkey]

1. The devil is in the details. Every different department has their own rules. Every different union (police, teachers, janitors, etc) has their own rules for vacation, holidays, overtime, etc. Every manager has their own little pet feature they want included, and no one puts a foot and down and says, "no!"

2. Such projects are always contracted to outside firms, who have absolutely no interest in getting these things done. Not done well, not done on time and in budget, just 'done'.

They took a $60 M project and collected $600 M. How much do you think SAIC would have collected if the project wrapped up in 2005?

I am not an accountant, but I'm guessing that figure is less than if they draw the project out for 6 more years.

Re:Time and Attendance

[rabbit994]

Because every large company/government has special rules and accounting/HR/Whoever wants very detailed data. This group of employees can only get overtime if they worked past 50 hours. That group gets overtime at 40. Third group only gets overtime if they work over 80 hours in two weeks. Fourth group is union with wierd work rules that speculate if they are forloughed, they still get paid 1/2 salary so they need ability to mark that. Some people clock in and you need to include rounding logic in that and different groups of people will have different rounding rules. Others just fill out timesheet. There is alot of logic just dealing with that.

Then you throw in approving logic, who can edit what, auditing, report generation and so on and so forth.

Finally, most time/attendance systems at that level also interface with payroll take all overtime/forlough/benefit logic and it has to be exact with zero mistakes.

Re:Time and Attendance

[blair1q]

If you approach the problem with a proper design methodology that generates a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement, the solution falls out of the regs and obvious behaviors.

And, if you build into that an ability to adapt the system to changing regulations, you've handled the most obvious case, in which regulations change, which they do, continually.

Re:Time and Attendance

[zentec]

Because the larger an enterprise, the greater likelihood that each department has its own attendance and time policies. Start adding in union contracts, and now you're really having fun. I'm sure the garbage collectors in NYC are paid much much differently than the teachers. Each of those examples probably are nightmares on their own with exceptions to rules, bonuses, overtime and penalties for missed lunches.

However, this is also a case of poor project management. I would not have assigned that job to anyone but the best PPMs.

Re:Time and Attendance

[tompaulco]

Well, just clocking in and out seem easy enough, doesn't it? Well, then it turns out, that internal economy requires that you be able to show when you worked on what projects, and the projects all have to be automatically imported from and time detail exported to all of the originating departments and whatever disparate project management software they are running.
And it just goes downhill from there.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

That's amazing and just plain brilliant! This simple suggestion may well revolutionize the attendance software development industry. I wonder if it could be adapted to other types of software?

Re:Time and Attendance

[Kjella]

Usually, if you want just attendance like time in, time out that's not problem. If you start with tracking what they're working on, resource planning or internal/external billing, you're looking for a world of hurt.

To take one example I got, one company I worked with insisted that sick leave was strictly a matter between the resource manager and that employee, and not for general display. Yet at the same time, they wanted lots of hours worked figures that'd essentially drill down to find the "missing" hours. Project managers were supposed to see what other projects the team was also working on, except if that was sick leave. To "fuzz" the data this had to be mixed with other administrative time so that others couldn't get good statistics on whether they were sick, study day, administrative meetings or whatever. But their immediate manager should of course get to drill down on those. After a lot of back and forth they decided data on an individual basis wasn't needed except in the real T&A system for salary, because we focused on overall project progress and resource planning. Then of course that became silly as project managers realized they had x hours tracked from a department, but not for each person from that department so they didn't know who over/underspent.

Another good example I have is from financials - wouldn't it be nice if you could staff up a project and have that immediately converted to a budget, then just whatever hardware/software/other costs? Also great for checking billing, one hour worked means we'll expect a bill from the consultant on that amount. Except uh-oh, now everyone who can book a consultant one hour and create a budget can see their rates. Things hard negotiated and best kept secret. The solutions to this were many and varied, but they were all hacks to make fudge numbers one place then real numbers other places and don't mix them up to create a complete mess. Oh yes and secret projects were always interesting, they were supposed to show up in total budgets but not be visible other places, I mean just titles like "Buyout of [foo]" was stock sensitive and complete no-no to see. But people still worked on it and needed to track time somewhere and some people sometimes needed to know what project it really was. The whole logic made you want to strangle someone.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to government regulations, also add union contracts. My company only has 600 employees, but union requirements seem to be the most frequent reason for changes for our time and attendance system. I imagine NYC deals with hundreds of unions.

Re:Time and Attendance

[gstrickler]

There are a number of factors that bloat and/or doom these projects:

1. No one person or group of people actually know all the specifications.
2. Tracking time for vacations, PTO, sick time, personal time, leave of absence, overtime, etc. varies by jurisdiction, and changes over time.
3. Other specifications may change during development due to legal or corporate policy changes. IRS rulings, FAS rulings, state and federal legislative changes, etc. can all effect the project.
4. Contracts (especially gov't) aren't usually written to allow for significant changes or variation. Changes require a change request, a change cost estimate, and a change order. Work on the change can't begin until all of that is complete, meanwhile the project either continues without the change, or goes on hold.
5. They don't hire a really good software architect to design a flexible system, they just design it to the incomplete (and often inaccurate) specs in the RFP/Contract.
6. The amount of auditing, reporting, and security controls are almost always underestimated.

So, it's far more complex that it first appears.

Having said that, $600M is an insane amount. And the 2GB footprint another poster cited is also absurd. A good software architect could have prevented or minimized both of those.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

If you approach the problem with a proper design methodology that generates a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement, the solution falls out of the regs and obvious behaviors.

And, if you build into that an ability to adapt the system to changing regulations, you've handled the most obvious case, in which regulations change, which they do, continually.

The deadliest words in Information Technology. "It's Simple. All You Have To Do Is..."

Re:Time and Attendance

[Sipper]

Nothing seems so simple as Time and Attendance software until you to write/consult on/implement Time and Attendance software.

Would you mind going into more detail as to why?

1) Dates and Times aren't simple.

An easy example is Daylight Savings Time; in the fall, clocks are rolled back two hours such that two hours are repeated. During these two repeated hours you can work graveyard shift, and the "Time and Attendance software" has to know that 11pm - 5am is actually an 8-hour work day. And it needs to know that this is /going/ to happen ahead of time. And daylight savings time needs to be changeable, too, so that Presidents can alter them for political reasons.

Now consider what happens when as an employee, you're sent to an area with a different timezone. To be able to accurately account for night-time differential, the system requires entering in the dates and times in the time zone local to the employee, who now is no longer in Eastern Standard Time.

2) "Attendance" means all kinds of different things.

Mainly "attendance" really means needing to know how to pay an employee. But employees can be full or part-time, be "on call", be on vacation, sick, on disability leave, on maternity leave, etc. So the system needs to account for all of that. Exactly how to interpret all of the nuances of all this can be quite a mess, as it's dependent on corporate or governmental policies, so "business logic" becomes part of the "attendance" meaning.

3) Employees may need to account for partial hours.

Partial hours are an interesting problem. Kronos at one time used 1/10th hour increments, for instance, but people don't think in 1/10th hours -- they generally at most think in 1/4 hours in terms of billing. And if you use floating-point arithmetic for .1 hours, you'll run into another ugly problem, which is that it is impossible to hold .1 as a floating-point number with perfect accuracy because the number is stored as fractional binary. Add .1 a thousand or a million times, and you'll get an offset that shouldn't be there. So you need to store the fractional hours separately as an integer from the whole hours, but yet use the two separate numbers as if they were one.

These are just a start of some of the issues I know of, and I'm sure there are more that I don't know of.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy answer - the customers usually don't have any idea of the requirements until the project is underway. I don't mean the insignificant requirements of "I want the button in blue"; I'm talking about the architecturally significant equipments. Some people call that "Agile" development because they get to iterate until the figure out what they want. We all know better though. Real Agile development requires a long term vision architectural vision with incremental improvements.
On the Contractor side, once you have people on a project and start billing, it's very hard to pull them off because the customer doesn't have their stuff together. Resources have been allocated; it's time to use them. So they make what progress they can. Oh yeah, also: most programmers suck. I blame age discrimination (I'm 29, so no - I'm not running into that problem - yet) and lack of appreciation for the value of seasoned veterans. I've seen many a seasoned veteran leave the field because there's poor salary growth potential for experienced programmers. You basically cap out in your mid 30's. That leads us to the point where I just did a phone interview with one kid graduating with a CS degree that didn't know the difference between a stack and a queue nor did he know what ARP was. Another, who fancied himself as advanced in Linux, didn't know how to rename a file. Who the heck is teaching these kids and giving them passing grades? Lastly, you really think you're going to get the best and brightest to work on a time-keeping system? With a few exceptions, probably not.

Re:Time and Attendance

[blair1q]

It would, since in all the time I've been entering my time into computerized timecard systems it's been painfully apparent that NOT ONE FUCKING CODE MONKEY HAS EVER TRIED IT.

And yes, I believe that other types of software would benefit from it greatly. They have my permission to use it, without restriction.

Re:Time and Attendance

[blair1q]

>deadliest words in Information Technology. "It's Simple. All You Have To Do Is..."

Then every IT project ever was stillborn.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

We have employees on commission only, if they don't sell they get whats called a draw (Minimum wage for the hours attended), but their draws get removed from their next commission sales. However, many have child support taken out and that comes out before the draw can be taken, and their take home due to law must be minimum wage, so their commission covers part of their previous draw, but they are granted another one to be legal. We also have a charity at work, but that money comes out after draws and child support, but before they get their paycheck. In addition they get days off, where we have to account for their time those days towards them getting minimum wage, but they can also take half days instead of full days. Then there are company meetings as well, which counts towards their hours for minimum wage. Then there are chargebacks on the sales, where the company pays to fix something sold which comes from the profit and is removed from their next commission, or is added to their draw if they made no commission.

Then we have service guys who are on what we call flat rate. So a job takes 4 hours, they get paid 4 hours for it even if they only took 2 hours to do it, or even if it took them 6 hours. But they can be charged back if the customer refuses to pay for 4 hours later and then they will lose the 2 hours (Or whatever was refused to be paid for), but it may not be the same week, it may be a couple weeks later. But like sales, they must make a minimum wage, even after chargebacks so they also can get a draw, and they may also have child support and give to the charity on site as well. They also get days off, full or half days.

Add to that benefits, medical for self/spouse/ or family, FICA tax, payroll tax, income tax, and on and on. Then we also have salaried people, which tend to be much simpler, but they have additional rules.

This is just a scratching of the surface. Its actually far more complicated than I made it sound, but now you have seen enough details to understand how it can get complicated. I completely skipped bonus plans, which are even more complicated.

Re:Time and Attendance

[slashdottedjoe]

Unions and government are the reasons, plain and simple. Together they have a list of rules that would drive anyone insane. Now, put it into code!

Re:Time and Attendance

[Toonol]

God help us all, I believe you.

Re:Time and Attendance

[luis_a_espinal]

If you approach the problem with a proper design methodology that generates a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement, the solution falls out of the regs and obvious behaviors.

And, if you build into that an ability to adapt the system to changing regulations, you've handled the most obvious case, in which regulations change, which they do, continually.

To "a thorough set of use-cases before writing the first requirement", that's the most naive, most impractical stupidest thing I've heard, a blurp out of academic void. This is the number one mistake people in software engineering do, believing that this is possible. In fact, good software engineering recognizes this, and what you just suggested is anathema to it.

Except with the most trivial of cases or in systems that strictly autonomous that interface with physical environments for which you have a model, requirements exist a-priori... ALWAYS.

We are talking about systems that interface with people, business, and processes (internal and external) governed by law, contractual agreements, human behavior and market forces that can change at any time and for which no model exist (unlike models of physical phenomena.). These can change (and due change) by priorities greater than the ones driving the development of a system.

And this does not count deadlines to deliver that typically exist to get something going and that are non-negotiable. Yeah, non-negotiable. You can get a legislative deadline to implement something just to be allowed to operate (think HIPAA or SOX), or mandated by business imperatives that can make or break a company.

And we, software engineers, have to cope with that change because that's what we get paid the big bucks for . With that in mind, it is obvious that it is impossible to do what you suggest: to get a through set of use-cases before writing the first requirement. In fact, many of the requirements and use-cases only become known as progress is made. This is true for any complex system.

Moreover, it flies in the face of agile development, rapid prototyping, or the older-but-always-good iterative/spiral models.

You pretty much suggested that we do waterfall. Way to go bro.

Re:Time and Attendance

[roman_mir]

Well, this sounds like a complex solution to a no-problem, as the simple solution to this would have been access lists for specific projects and people's time, created on per-project basis. This way you don't need any logic to be in the app, you just allow them to have fine-grained security around pieces of information based on their sign-in credentials and they can screw around with the logic of who is allowed to see what IRL outside of the app itself.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen other software like this, a lot of simple variants and a lot of complex ones. There were some where the end user would create his own settings and choose how to apply them, others were over simplistic with little or no details at all, but most of them came with the settings hard-coded (that's how they looked to the user) and had to get an update every time some law changed, and yes, you needed a subscription, a paid one to get the update and support.
It's not a programming issue, skill or time, it's a business model that works very very well.

As a programmer, I can tell you this, you can do ANYTHING, how good it will work, and how fast you'll get it done that depends largely on your skills, but if you ARE a programmer then you should be able to write any program, because as a programmer you can read documentation, manuals, improve your skills, write any necessary library if there isn't one, work around bugs or patch them yourself and so on. Also, the moment you start working on a project that size, it's assumed you have some working experience, not an overworked, underpaid student rushing to get to his third job on time.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Kjella]

I guess you completely missed the part where they were allowed to see SOME time like other projects yet not other time, or where the project was supposed to show up in SOME overviews but not in others, sometimes in an anonymous form, or the costs should be real SOME places but not others. Yes, we had simple access lists and they were completely insufficient because all or nothing was rarely what was requested. And the exceptions broke all the simple rules like you can see all projects in that division, of course we could have access lists for every single one but they'd be micromanaged to death and it still wouldn't solve the above. So your "no problem" is a hopelessly impractical solution that still wouldn't actually work. But I guess that's why I'm paid to fix it after you hit a brick wall. Not that I'm charging $600m or anything, for that I'd build you a system that gives free blowjobs too.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Zadaz]

Yes, but more than half a billion dollars of hidden complexity?

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

Time Tracking is easy. Person A did job x starting at date/time 1 and ending at date/time 2. Rinse repeat.

Where the world of hurt comes in is the payroll/benefits side. There's the labour laws at various government levels, union agreements, non-unions practices, internal/external politics and finally all of the above is a moving target that can be extremely time sensitive.

As far as estimates goes I've seen all types:

1. Good ones made bad to sell to upper management/the public/ the politicians;
2. Bad ones;
3. Good ones that went bad due to execrable project management, changing targets, outside political factors.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for this. I was about to point out that the reason for the agile development methods existance is to deal with the failings of exactly what he just described. It's impossible to predict what changes and use cases are going to be needed when the human element is added.

It's funny, we have interns and we set one of them on a nice to have RFID tracking system for items. The intern turned out to be steller and much better than we thought he'd be. He knocked out a system in about two weeks. At code review we pointed out use cases he didn't think of and he was damn near crying by the end of it, and we had to re-assure him that he'd done an excellent job. We decided to be kind and not point out the failings in usability of the system either.

blair1qs respone blatently points out that he's either a) a student, or b) a very poor software engineer whos never dealt with a difficult problem.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

My opinion is that Time & Attendance is much like any other application area. Sure, you can write a simple system, and it will have simple capabilities. However intensively used systems gets feature after feature added on, including stuff you never thought of going in. Things like past dating and future dating almost any kind of event imaginable.

One thing that a lot of systems (and users, and shamefully, some IT analysts) get wrong is the architectural matters. They will violate the principle of data-driven systems for instance, so the code dynamically reformats the data to make it appear like the values are different than they really contain. This gets entirely out of hand when different modification algorithms are required for each and every fiscal year.

Maintaining the integrity of a system requires, sometimes saying No to certain requests. Or better yet, altering the nature of the request to make it architecturally supportable over the long-term.

Anyhow large systems development projects are notoriously vulnerable to time or money challenges, including complete project failures. There is a lot of data on this subject available. Ed Yourdon, SEI and many others have written extensively about the topic. It's not an issue of just government, or SAIC, or Time and Attendance. Many of the newer development methodologies like RAD, XP, and all of the PMP methodologies based upon short delivery cycles, high user involvement and continuous testing are all intended to address these matters. And, if they cannot, then at least catch the failing project early (earlier) and allow effective managerial intervention. Even if the project cannot be saved, at least it can be ended before it becomes a massive beast.

However it is human nature to believe that something is easier than it is, cheaper than it is, and simpler than it is. It is also human nature to deny failure, fail to learn from experience, or assign incorrect meanings to things, especially when personal gain or personal loss are on the line.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Seraphim_72]

I call bullshit. You said rockets, name the system.

"We installed 20 emergency stop pendants so those people could still be required."

You installed 20 pendants because your software was shit. Name the place and rocket, there can only be a few.

Re:Time and Attendance

[roman_mir]

I guess you completely missed the part where they were allowed to see SOME time like other projects yet not other time, or where the project was supposed to show up in SOME overviews but not in others, sometimes in an anonymous form, or the costs should be real SOME places but not others.

- no, I didn't miss it. Those are the rules that shouldn't be in the app., that's my point. All those rules should be outside of the app. because of how ridiculous they are, all those rules should be about access control lists, and ACLs should be used not only to do binary 'show/not show', but they should be used dynamically at the point of data retrieval, evaluating every type of data against this user/this project.

This problem is a no-problem for an application to solve, it's a constantly shifting target that should not be solved by software business logic, but instead should be solved by constantly shifting ACL permissions, and so instead of constant fixes to the business logic + recompilation + re-installation + down time due to inherent problem of bugs, introduced during such adjustments, it should be a data-model driven ACL, which is used to evaluate data dynamically as it comes out of the storage and before presentation as well.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the departments utilizing the software have mostly union employees. And each department could have different unions working there, each with a different contract with very specific requirements on things like number of hours allowed to be worked per day/week, reporting, and so on.

These requirements had an effect on the ship date & budget that were multiplicative, not additive. Possibly even exponential.

Re:Time and Attendance

[Geminii]

I have to wonder if perhaps it would work better in modules. The first one would just record times and maybe types of attendance/leave from a dropdown. Any software company could knock out one of those in five minutes. Then, once it was in place and running, the project team could take requests for analysis algorithms, local and global attendance categories, supervisor permissions, stats reports, that sort of thing. In the meantime, staff could just keep using the very simple interface.

I worked one national government department where someone internal had thrown together an incredibly simple VB timesheet interface (effectively, a four-week list of dates with before-lunch, after-lunch, and overtime start-finish cell pairs for each date). It was astonishingly easy and intuitive to use, and faster than a greased weasel. The only problem I ever had with it was that eventually a bunch of departments in HQ wanted more data but couldn't be bothered requesting access to the equally simple backend, so they all wrote their own nasty, broken, slow, incompatible programs and proclaimed that staff had to use them. It got to the point where if you wanted to take leave, you could end up having to record the details in four separate interfaces, none of which talked to each other or used the same conventions.

Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[big_oaf]

Was there no off-the-shelf software good enough? Not for $60M? Really?

Re:Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[wsxyz]

Not with the critically necessary modifications for New York City's incredible unique and specific needs.

Re:Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[gimple]

I was presales for an enterprise software company that got called in propose a solution for a VERY large company which is heavy in equipment. (I am being intentionally vague here.) Some of their equipment moved from one piece of equipment to other pieces of equipment. Picture a big box with little boxes inside. You could move a little box from one big box to another big box. Each of these little boxes had to have a record of everyplace they went, which meant that they had to be identifiable.

This organization somehow had been loosing track of the little boxes, and would arbitrarily reassign ID numbers to boxes. They said something like the ID tags would fall off or some sort of nonsense. Since this caused regulatory problems for them, they came up with a project called the "Permanent ID Project" wherein they would use software to keep track of the little boxes.

The first question out of someone's mouth during the demonstration of how we would track the "permanent" ID number of a box was "You know that ID number you just showed us? How would we change that?"

This organization had "incredible unique and specific needs."

Re:Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[jcombel]

i think you've told a version of this story once before (either that, or it is a common enough experience?)

regardless, it's interesting. a collection of stories like this (with real details) would be a good read

Re:Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[Mongoose Disciple]

This is a pretty good point.

When you're writing software for a business and one of their requirements increases the complexity/time of the project for no good reason, you talk about this with management and generally they come around to your way of thinking. (Or they agree to spend the extra time, but mostly no.)

When you're writing software for a government and run into an unreasonable requirement like that, oftentimes there can be no wiggling on it, because it's a [b]law[/b], usually made by people who aren't involved in the project directly in any way.

Re:Off the Shelf Not Good Enough?

[Lifyre]

Do these incredible unique and specific needs include helmets and thoroughly licked windows?

NYC's Role

[geoffrobinson]

I would love to hear the stories of how NYC's requirements lead to the mess. Which as a former defense contractor, I'm almost certain they are there.

Did Bloomburg take a break from monitoring people's salt intake? When did he become a software project management expert?

Re:NYC's Role

[Talderas]

When he realized he could possibly bully a company for $600M for some revenue.

Re:NYC's Role

[cosm]

Agreed, coming from Public Safety, the requirement changes are so politicized its insane. Not to say SAIC isn't responsible for some/all of the mess, but I can say I know what its like dealing with mega-conglomerate counties/cities and their inconsistent demands. For $600 million, I think all of us here could have delivered something more than SAIC did though. I would code 22hrs a day for 2 years for that $600 million and make it happen, and then just coast :)

Re:NYC's Role

[Sique]

(Sorry for posting off-topic, but I am very interested to know which war actually ended communism. The last time I looked it was low oil prices and high international interest rates that caused the money flow to the Soviet Union to dry up, the free union Solidarnosc in Poland surviving a seven year long era of martial law and still going strong and the people in East Germany being fed up by a fossilized stalinist regime unwilling to any change fleeing the country in droves that brought down communism. I might err on that one, being there and actually living in East Germany in 1989, so what can I know?)

Re:NYC's Role

[Unkyjar]

Well to be accurate, Nazi's, Communism and Slavery, while not prevalent are most certainly not ended.

Re:NYC's Role

[geoffrobinson]

The sig doesn't allow for much nuance. But I was generally referring to Afghanistan and the Cold War military buildup which they couldn't afford anymore. Not that they were invaded and defeated. I hope that clarifies.

Sorry, didn't you read the EULA?

[elrous0]

The EULA specifically says that you can't ever, never sue us--for any reason. It also says that this software is not in any way obligated to ever function.

Hey, you clicked through it.

Well done public sector

[RichardJenkins]

If something's owned by everybody it's owned by nobody, and that's exactly who'll gives a fuck about making it work well.

Re:Well done public sector

[immakiku]

That aphorism sounds nice, until you consider how well Wikipedia, Firefox, and LibreOffice are doing.

Re:Well done public sector

[characterZer0]

Wikipedia is owned by WikiMedia.
Firefox is owned by Mozilla.
LibreOffice is owned by The Document Foundation.

These groups are committed to long term goals surrounding these projects.

The consultants and bureaucrats involved with CityTime are committed to taking as much taxpayer money as they can.

Re:Well done public sector

[blair1q]

Firefox just changed to a catch-me-if-you-can model of stability. Wikipedia has errors in the article about the Wikipedia; and what little it has for organizational coherence is owed to limits on who can pwn whom within its ranks. LibreOffice doesn't really know if it exists or if Larry Ellison is just letting them fall to the end of their rope.

Projects that are led by individuals with clear vision of the problem and the solution get done the way they're supposed to.

Projects that are led by groups of individuals with varying understanding of the problem and noisy copies of the solution statement get done by someone saying "ENOUGH!", cutting off the funding, and shipping what remains.

Re:Well done public sector

[RichardJenkins]

Well I'm sure that public projects have boards of individually talented people running them and vested to a degree in their success, and let's not forget that the greatest things we've ever done (sanitation, electricity, the welfare state, insert your own list here, civil engineering mega projects) have been public works.

I dunno, maybe this project is being run by people better suited to another career, it's certainly too complex to sum up in a sentence or two! The point I failed to make was that public projects seem to sit in special sort of bubble immune to anyone really kicking up a stink about them going wrong. The public peeks in from time to time as if gawking at a train crash where no one they know got hurt, gasps and shakes their head, then promptly forgets about it whilst the whole endeavour churns merrily along sucking up resource and offering no value. I was lamenting how easy it is to write something off as somebody else's problem more than anything.

I, for one, am very happy to spend 10 minutes writing about this on Slashdot - instead of actually trying to participate.

DemocracyNow's coverage

[davidiii]

"[New York City] just laid off 500 public school aides who make $18,000 a year, while they’re paying all these [230 software consultants] that are making $400,000 and $500,000 a year for a failed system." http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants

Re:DemocracyNow's coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

"[New York City] just laid off 500 public school aides who make $18,000 a year, while they’re paying all these [230 software consultants] that are making $400,000 and $500,000 a year for a failed system."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants

Yeah, I had read about it somewhere where the main people were *raking* in huge annual salaries and the lowest level people were still getting big fat checks (compared to comparable salaried positions occurring elsewhere in that region in that industry during the same period). So, no doubt about it, it was heavy big fat pig teat sucking for sure! What's really amusing to me is that the NYC government officials seemed (to me) to be clueless as to whether it was justified or not. Something was fouled up somewhere but that is normal for NYC. Hell, for $500,000+/year, I'd suck a pig's teat too! :)

Re:DemocracyNow's coverage

[geekoid]

yep.

They could have kept those teachers, hired their own in house programmers and got a better software package that they could maintain for decades. Instead they got a poorly installed, poorly documented, software that doesn't meet their specs and at a substantial overrun

Re:DemocracyNow's coverage

[AlXtreme]

They could have kept those teachers, hired their own in house programmers and got a better software package that they could maintain for decades

But that would have meant that those poor overworked civil servants in charge would actually have to manage an IT project, heaven forbid.

No, it's much easier to let others do the heavy lifting and simply pay the bills with our money.

Accountability for payments

[Anonymous Coward]

So NYC leadership figured out that they were in the middle of a giant pile of steaming........ at 10x the original budget? I would have thought you cut off the flow of money a bit sooner if you weren't satisfied with the results. Why didn't this come up at the $60 million mark?

It sounds like SAIC did some bad things, but it's troubling that it got this far without some better oversight.

Re:Accountability for payments

[gregfortune]

And posters need to be held accountable for forgetting to login. Let the mocking and sneering begin. :) Silly me.

No one happens to know of a way to take ownership of posts you mistakenly posted anonymously?

Re:Accountability for payments

[Jeng]

No one happens to know of a way to take ownership of posts you mistakenly posted anonymously?

Naw, and probably won't happen. Too many people who are afraid of posting something that might not fit in with what ever group think they "think" is happening on /.

You know those "I'm posting AC because I can't speak my mind otherwise because I would get modded down one point." morons. They would just post AC, see how it panned out, then if it didn't work out they would leave it be, but if it got modded positively they would try to reclaim ownership.

Re:Accountability for payments

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

if there was not a permanent record of everything I said logged in, i might always post logged in. But there is, i don't want flim flam on my record, so bite us -anonymous

Re:Accountability for payments

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

(i checked the anonymous box but people with guns and warrants stormed the building before I could hit post and told me we're living in the future, now, son!)

Re:Accountability for payments

[gregfortune]

Yeah, that's a mighty good point. C'est la vie

Re:Accountability for payments

[Anonymous Coward]

No one happens to know of a way to take ownership of posts you mistakenly posted anonymously?

No, I already own all of them.

Duke Nukem Forever

[sourcerror]

It's not unique for government. See DNF.

SOW

[HideyoshiJP]

I hope they had a fairly well written statement-of-work. I'm assuming no, considering the circumstances.

wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade.

- this is the problem with government programs: from the very beginning they are already deep in trouble. It makes no sense that a computer payroll system should start at 63 million, why did it start at that number from the beginning?

It makes no sense that government should be so large, as to require a computer payroll system that starts as a 63 million project, never mind that anybody getting that contract will make their best to prolong it as much as possible, simply because it IS government and it does not care about costs.

When somebody says that government can do things efficiently, and they use the postal office as an example, they should really go back to that premise and realize, that the US post office is out of cash - it's selling 'forever stamps' today, and assuming it doesn't just dissolve over the next few years, it won't be able to make any money at that time and it will be in a worse fiscal shape than it is today, because the stamps sold today are basically protection against the 10% (current level) of monetary inflation that US Fed and Treasury are incurring on US population. Today the postal office cannot function already and they sell the forever stamps, tomorrow, they'll have to raise the prices but people will use those forever stamps and the postal office will either have to default on that stamp or dissolve, or there will be another bail out, and people use that as one of 'better' examples of government 'efficiency'.

Another example they give is Medicare, while not realizing that Medicare costs are spread out among various parts of government that are not calculated into the costs directly, and just like SS, that program is bankrupt today, being the biggest pyramid scams of all times, making Madoff look like a preschooler.

Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?

People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.

When business overruns its costs and credits like that, it likely goes under. Shouldn't the same apply to governments? I think it should. And those, who are allowing the money of tax payers to be wasted like that do need to spend some time thinking about in jail. Same should be done on all levels - federal and state and municipal, maybe then the governments will stop bailing out failing businesses and causing massive economic collapses.

Re:wrong from the start

[Lunix Nutcase]

When somebody says that government can do things efficiently, and they use the postal office as an example, they should really go back to that premise and realize, that the US post office is out of cash

So it's out of cash yet it started the 2011 fiscal year with $283 million in net profit? If you can't even get that detail right then one can only imagine that the rest of your rant is wrong as well.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

I said: they are selling 'forever stamps' today, that's their 'net profit'.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

The Post Office does not suffer the same problems as UPS or FedEx would because they are deemed to service areas that are small and rural. If you look at how UPS and FedEx run; they do not have to service these areas. In fact, they offload most of these items to the Post Office for delivery to these areas. They are also in the hole so much due to pension and other retirement benefits of their employees. These pension funds got murdered in the economic collapse...was that the government running that show? nope, don't think so.

Social Security isn't broke either...it is fully funded for another 25yrs. The only reason why SS has any problems atm the moment is mainly due to the borrowing that goes on against the trust fund. Look at all of the wonderful defense spending that we do. SS is actually budget neutral and does not cost the government anything outside of administrative costs. Medicare is only having issues because of rising costs that they cannot themselves control. If you look at the Medicare Part D, they are not allowed to negotiate with Pharmaceutical companies like a normal insurance program can. When you have lobbyists from the Pharm industry writing your bill; this is what happens.

the governments will stop bailing out failing businesses and causing massive economic collapses.

Last time I checked, this had to do more with a lack of government interference than it actually causing the collapse. All they did was deregulate the industry and the industry decided to gamble like they were drunkin sailors on leave.

Re:wrong from the start

[geekoid]

The government does a great many things efficiently, and substantially cheaper then private industry. Usually large infrastructure and big RnD projects.

You clearly have never been involved in a project like this, they take years to get done, are complex and you might not even KNOW you have a cost overrun until the company presents you with a bill with a lot of previous years add-ons suddenly appearing. usally right after the point where rolling back isn't practical anymore. THIS is a corporation abusing it's position and a city official holding them accountable. Only on /. would that be the governments fault.

These projects should be done in house.

I've been through many of these projects on both sides of the fence.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

The government does a great many things efficiently, and substantially cheaper then private industry. Usually large infrastructure and big RnD projects.

- oh yeah, how well does this statement bode with this one exactly:

complex and you might not even KNOW you have a cost overrun until the company presents you with a bill with a lot of previous years add-ons suddenly appearing. usally right after the point where rolling back isn't practical anymore.

....

I've been through many of these projects on both sides of the fence.

Speaking from the both sides of your mouth, I see.

Re:wrong from the start

[mcmonkey]

Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?

People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.

BTW, from TFA but not included in the summarys:

The recent indictment of SAIC's leader project manager on the CityTime job, Gerard Denault, as well as the guilty plea to criminal charges made by SAIC systems engineer Carl Bell, who designed the software, are "extremely troubling and raise questions about SAIC's corporate responsibility and internal controls to prevent and combat fraud," he added. Denault and Bell were charged with were charged with taking kickbacks, wire fraud and money laundering.

Also recently indicted were Reddy and Padma Allen, a couple who head up New Jersey systems integrator TechnoDyne, which was SAIC's primary subcontractor on the CityTime project. Federal authorities allege that the Allens and others conducted an elaborate overbilling and kickback scheme that siphoned millions of dollars from the project.

Federal authorities have also contended that SAIC had received a whistleblower complaint about the project as far back as 2005, Bloomberg said in the letter. "It is unclear what SAIC did at that time to investigate these serious allegations."

And Bloomberg is a billionaire. He's not some ivory tower academic or career politician. He's supposed to know better.

I worked for a small company that was bought by a slightly less small company which was then gobbled up by SAIC. Anyone who didn't have their life savings wrapped up in the venture from starting the original small company got the heck out of there.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

I find replying to ACs being a waste. Sign in, repost, I'll reply.

Re:wrong from the start

[garyoa1]

Remember, the post office as well as social security ran in the black for many many years. Until the gov decided they're making too much and began to "borrow" from them.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

Remember that post office has a monopoly on first class mail delivery, which is protected by law.

SS never had a fund, it was a ponzi scam from the get-go, as the first people to enter got extreme benefits, while contributing basically nothing, and the last people to enter get to pay extreme contributions, and will get nothing in return. Government had to go all the way to the Supreme court with SS, as in lower courts it couldn't convince the judges that the SS taxes and SS payments were unrelated, otherwise it would not have passed the Constitutionality test. Supreme court proved to be just as much a political hand of the federal government as the Federal reserve, and so SS 'passed' the test.

The point is that SS never had any fund, it never was an investment and it is now paying out more than it takes in, the difference comes from IOUs, and the idiot AC above in this thread above is wrong about SS being 'solvent' for another quarter of a century, as SS is insolvent right now. Declaring that one is solvent by writing a check to oneself doesn't work in real life, and it will fail in government life as well.

Don't you wish you could just opt out of it now? Well, one way to do it is to skip US citizenship and move.

Re:wrong from the start

[devent]

No that is the problem with corruption. And the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people.

"When business overruns its costs and credits like that, it likely goes under. Shouldn't the same apply to governments? I think it should"

Ok, so are you prepared to get a gun and shoot everyone or get shot down? Are you prepared the next time that there is a fire that half of the city goes down in flames? Are you prepared that if you got an accident you need to walk home, lay down and die?

I know you are most likely American and you are taught since you are a baby that American is the greatest country and you will be the next millionaire and the next president, you just have to work hard. If that is how life would work, we all be millionaires and presidents. But the true is that only the 1% fortune people will get rich and that the rest 99% would just die without a government.

Corruption was always the reason why states fail and the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people which are not paying attention to their elected leaders. Did you inform yourself about the budged of your city? Did you hold the major accountable?

Re:wrong from the start

[PraiseBob]

When somebody says that government can do things efficiently, and they use the postal office as an example, they should really go back to that premise and realize, that the US post office is out of cash

The post office ran effectively for hundreds of years breaking even or making a modest profit. Only in the past few years have they faced major financial problems, which isn't surprising considering that the past couple of decades have seen huge social changes shifting snail mail to email, shifting bills to web based payment systems, and shifting package delivery to Fedex and UPS.

It seems unfair that you ignore literally hundreds of years of history to focus on the last few years where 95% of their income has been impacted, and through which they are adapting and changing their strategy to remain viable. If turning a profit was the most important aspect of the post office, then small town america wouldn't have post offices at all.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

No that is the problem with corruption. And the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people.

- government must exist only because if it does not, something will appear to occupy that roles, so it's better to have a known quantity of evil, than something that will just spur out of vacuum. But because it is a necessary evil, it must be controlled and only be allowed to do the bare minimum, so that it can only destroy very little of society by its mere fact of existence.

Ok, so are you prepared to get a gun and shoot everyone or get shot down?

- well, sure, but that's not the point. The point is that government should not be as big as it is, it must be very small and very controlled.

The functions the government is allowed to take today, should not be in the hands of government - a monopoly with no accountability and without competition.

I know you are most likely American and you are taught since you are a baby that American is the greatest country

- I was born in USSR, lived in a number of places, including North America, so you do not in fact know.

Corruption was always the reason why states fail and the fault of corruption in a democracy are the people which are not paying attention to their elected leaders. Did you inform yourself about the budged of your city? Did you hold the major accountable?

- pay attention to my sig. I make sure I know what's happening financially to align my interests with the most likely economic outcomes, this does include learning things about the surrounding environment.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

The post office ran effectively for hundreds of years

- not without government subsidies, explicit or implicit.

Or do you not consider a monopoly that US post office has upon first class mail delivery a subsidy and a government guaranteed protection of income?

If turning a profit was the most important aspect of the post office, then small town america wouldn't have post offices at all.

- again, not true. If that was the case there wouldn't have been a need for government protection against competition in mail delivery, wouldn't it?

The point is that a market need and a market supply will find a way to meet, but in presence of overwhelming government power they do not.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress prohibits USPS from raising the price of a stamp faster than inflation.. so over time, stamps actually get cheaper. So a forever stamp actually is a great deal for USPS - at least until congress gets rid of that requirement.

Re:wrong from the start

[devent]

Why does a government must be an evil? In fact, most democratic governments are very good and at the beginning most leaders believed in something, like get a better live, peace, economic grown. Right now we have the most peaceful and prosperous times since WW2, about 60 years. It was only because the people in leadership get corrupted, the governments get more "evil".

I watched the vid in your sig, very interesting. But I don't get your very anti-government alignment. The US is not a very democratic country, with the two party system with no direct democracy and the extreme dependency of politics and Wall Street/cooperations (at the federal level).

The last economic collapse was the result of that corruption of the federal government, which is again the fault of the people which are voted for their party/president. But I think in the US the people don't have much choice anyway, plus the US president can do what ever he/she likes anyway with no accountability.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003

Not the only article I have read that says it started in the 1990's.

Take a deep breath

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

Right, I guess TFA itself is not good enough for you, with its

CityTime was launched in 2003 at a budget of $63 million, but costs swelled dramatically as the project stumbled along for nearly a decade.

?

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

Why does a government must be an evil?

- well, because in history of humanity there was never a government that didn't become evil or wasn't evil from the start? Because government provides people with ability to gather power over people, businesses and resources without too much effort? Because a place that provides such an ability is a magnet for people who want the power over people, businesses and resources? Because government power is used to control people's lives, tax people's work, mis-allocate resources? Because over time regardless of the government structure it eventually leads to huge government apparatus living in itself for itself, feeding off the productive part of the economy?

Because government even though 'non-profit' is highly profitable for politicians and others, who get near the cake.

Because government has the power to set winners and losers in the economy by taxes and subsidies and regulations and laws.

Because anything that government does is an expression of government force, based on its ability to hurt you, rather than expression of market forces, which require 2 parties to come to an agreement.

Because government corrupts the very society by offering all sorts of impossible in the long run 'solutions', which cannot be supported economically in the long run, but look very lucrative to the majority of voters in the short run.

Because government punishes the productive part of the economy, by sacrificing it to its desire for power, since it basically directs the desires of the majority of the society to get things for free, things they didn't work for and to get those things, somebody must pay, and those are the people, who are in fact producers in the economy.

Because eventually governments spending and power grows beyond ability of the host society to maintain it, and then, government being what it is and corrupting the voters the way it does, destroys not only the economic ability to maintain this spending, but the very fabric of the economic stability - currency itself, by monetizing the insatiable thirst for debt, which is then used to 'pay' for all of the spending, which the voters are corrupted into believing is absolutely necessary and even indeed are their right.

--

The point is that government is a force outside of the rest of the market, and while the rest of the market is basically about 2 parties coming to an agreement over costs or value, etc., government does not have such silly limitations - it can impose its will upon the society, upon the economy, etc., regardless of any real economic outcomes and only based on the expedient desires to get more power and to stay in power further and indeed, to increase the power into infinity.

So yes, I cannot view the government in any other light but as the ultimate evil, and this conflicts with my understanding that the power vacuum will be filled with something, and this something better be set on purpose and be controlled than be something random.

The US Constitution was trying to impose the control upon the power of the government, but obviously there is perfect way to control it, and that's why governments always reset once they reach certain level of 'evil', and new governments are established.

It would be better if people understood these simple realities sooner rather than later.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly have never been involved in a project like this, they take years to get done, are complex and you might not even KNOW you have a cost overrun until the company presents you with a bill with a lot of previous years add-ons suddenly appearing. usally right after the point where rolling back isn't practical anymore. THIS is a corporation abusing it's position and a city official holding them accountable. Only on /. would that be the governments fault.

These projects should be done in house.

I've been through many of these projects on both sides of the fence.

Ummm I think you're missing the point: The project itself is complex because the government is overly complex and opaque. Government will always spend too much money on every project because of this complexity and because there are no consequences for the government.

Only on /. would that be the governments fault.

What are you talking about? /. is full of Keynesian fools just like yourself.

Re:wrong from the start

[PraiseBob]

If turning a profit was the most important aspect of the post office, then small town america wouldn't have post offices at all.

- again, not true. If that was the case there wouldn't have been a need for government protection against competition in mail delivery, wouldn't it?

The point is that a market need and a market supply will find a way to meet, but in presence of overwhelming government power they do not.

There are 36,400 post offices in the united states. There are 1,800 fedex offices, and 22 fedex hubs. There are a few hundred UPS distribution centers.

Do you for one second believe that UPS and Fedex would be profitable if they put offices in every small town? Why do they offload their commercial services onto the US Post Office which is operating at a loss, to deliver to small towns? Would mail and package deliver happen at all in small towns if the government didn't step in and mandate it as necessary by paying for the post office?

What is this protection against competition in mail delivery that you are talking about? There are hundreds of companies that exist and are solely dedicated to mail and package delivery. Are you saying they can't exist because of the monopoly the USPS has? Reality disagrees.

Re:wrong from the start

[jahudabudy]

The point is that a market need and a market supply will find a way to meet

Yet another core mantra of the pro-market types that is taken on faith that ignores real world examples that contradict this. This simply isn't true - only PROFITABLE market needs will even theoretically meet a supply. Sane societies recognize that economically disadvantaged markets (AKA poor people) have a right to certain basic necessities.

Re:wrong from the start

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the government wastes money and time better than anyone else. It adds red tape amazingly. Anything else you can think of that the government does "well"?

- worked as a contractor for various Fed Gov agencies for a decade.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

There are 36,400 post offices in the united states. There are 1,800 fedex offices, and 22 fedex hubs. There are a few hundred UPS distribution centers.

Do you for one second believe that UPS and Fedex would be profitable if they put offices in every small town?

- so what are you saying, exactly? Are you saying that USPS with its tens of thousands of post offices is profitable while a private company couldn't be?

What are you basing this on? USPS has unions and it has various pension obligations, it does not break even, it's in the red without the forever stamps and without the monopoly on first class mail delivery.

Should there be a physical post office hub in every town and city and village? I don't know, but if it can be done while at least breaking even, then a private company can do so, and if it cannot be done by a private company just to break even, what makes you think that a government bureaucracy figured out a way to have it done and break even or maybe generate some profit?

The reason any government agency or a department or a a program can exist, is because it does not have to break even. None of them have to break even. What private company can afford to have over 600 million taken from it for a piece of accounting software and break even or stay in business for that matter?

What is this protection against competition in mail delivery that you are talking about? There are hundreds of companies that exist and are solely dedicated to mail and package delivery. Are you saying they can't exist because of the monopoly the USPS has? Reality disagrees.

- I said the exact opposite, I said that without government subsidies and monopoly status in first class mail delivery it is the government USPS that could never stay in business, so reality agrees with me just fine, but you found a way to disagree with reality.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

Yet another core mantra of the pro-market types that is taken on faith that ignores real world examples that contradict this. This simply isn't true - only PROFITABLE market needs will even theoretically meet a supply.

- well, hello.

I have a need for somebody to come over and scratch my ass all day so that I don't have to do it and I want them also to cook my food and give me BJs, but I only have $2 that I am willing to spend on it.

Well? Any takers?

--

So that's your point? That there are desires that cannot be satisfied for insufficient funding?

But let's go further in your fine analysis.

Sane societies recognize that economically disadvantaged markets (AKA poor people) have a right to certain basic necessities.

- There are no such thing as 'rights' to get things out of society that you want just because you happened not to be able to buy them on your own.

Actual sane societies recognize, that free market economy works much better to increase overall wealth of the entire society, so that the poverty levels are decreased (though there will always be poorer and wealthier people, that's inevitable, but wealth generated by a productive free market economy raises standard of living for everybody, including the relatively poorer ones.)

Anyway, I am sure you have a wonderful rebuttal stuck somewhere there, don't be shy.

Re:wrong from the start

[jahudabudy]

There are no such thing as 'rights' to get things out of society that you want just because you happened not to be able to buy them on your own.

Which is why no one has problems letting poor people starve and/or bleed to death b/c they can't afford food or emergency medical attention. Oh wait, that is only in your ideal society, not the world the rest of us live in. Most of us view it as desirable to provide certain basic necessities to our fellow human beings whether they have "earned" them in the free market or not. And not just "enough to not die", either. Access to sanitation, electricity, education, communications, all sorts of things have been added to the list as the wealth of society has increased. And frankly, there are solid arguments that this sort of thing actually benefits society as a whole more so than the free market's obsession with the bottom line does.

that free market economy works much better to increase overall wealth of the entire society

A) Give some evidence for this claim - all the most successful economies are regulated and B) Irrelevant even if true. Markets and wealth are tools, not end goals. You sound like a guy with a hammer fetish that keeps shouting at everyone that wants to use the occasional screw, "because it's obvious that all that spiral motion of screwing is inefficient compared to the straight in pounding of a nail".

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

desirable to provide certain basic necessities to our fellow human beings whether they have "earned" them in the free market or not.

- that's all fine and dandy, but you are putting the word 'right' into it, while there is no such thing. If you do charity, this is totally your decision, good for you. However forcing everybody to give up their work for charity is a fine tuned form of slavery.

Access to sanitation, electricity, education, communications, all sorts of things have been added to the list as the wealth of society has increased

- well, obviously. As the free market economy increases the overall wealth of society, there isn't even a way to separate the poorer from the infrastructure that is built around them, so clearly the will be enjoying all those fine things, just like the rest of the society, though probably with somewhat less comfort. Again, this is wealth, and when it is increased by the free market, everybody gets to enjoy some form of it.

And frankly, there are solid arguments that this sort of thing actually benefits society as a whole more so than the free market's obsession with the bottom line does.

- wrong.

This sort of thing does not benefit the society as much as profit does, but it is a pretty good indicator of the overall wealth of the society.

Profit motive is what creates the wealth. Dissipating wealth through charity of your own is your own prerogative, but dissipating wealth through the so called 'charity', forced by the government is just as much a mis-allocation of resources, as when government pays x10 the original cost of some software, like in this story. It's waste, mis-allocation of resources, destruction of wealth, but probably most importantly destruction of personal freedoms.

Give some evidence for this claim - all the most successful economies are regulated

- economies that are most successful were and are regulated the least.

Truly successful economies are those, that have lowest barriers to entry, highest levels of competition, stable or even appreciating currency, rather than government created inflation, maximum business freedoms, so that the entrepreneur is not stopped in his tracks by red tape, no (or very low) taxes on work, so no income, payroll taxes, very little in terms of forced charity.

Examples? Why there are plenty. That's the kind of society that created the modern standard of living in USA itself, because that's the kind of society that USA was in 19 century, when its dollar was appreciating in value, there were no income taxes, there was no business regulations for the most part, there were low barriers to entry, since government maintained a very small number of monopolies, unlike it does today, by having monopolies in every industry.

Irrelevant even if true. Markets and wealth are tools, not end goals.

- it's very relevant, as people have never invented any tools that were better at wealth generation than free market capitalism.

You sound like a guy with a hammer fetish that keeps shouting at everyone that wants to use the occasional screw, "because it's obvious that all that spiral motion of screwing is inefficient compared to the straight in pounding of a nail".

- the media in this case is the message.

The economy depends on real middle class, and real middle class is not what they tell you it is. Real middle class is startups, small business owners, professionals, who work for themselves.

Real middle class provides the majority of production capacity, and your idea of economy destroys that very engine, by creating top heavy monopolistic economy, which dictates everything from government down to the people, stifles real innovation, mis-allocates every bit of real credit, destroys currency, puts enough red tape around any activity, that it is not only hard to cut throug

Re:wrong from the start

[jahudabudy]

well, obviously. As the free market economy increases the overall wealth of society, there isn't even a way to separate the poorer from the infrastructure that is built around them, so clearly the will be enjoying all those fine things, just like the rest of the society, though probably with somewhat less comfort. Again, this is wealth, and when it is increased by the free market, everybody gets to enjoy some form of it.

Sounds great in theory. In reality, that isn't what happened. Access to these things was provided by the free market where it was deemed profitable to the utility company. It wasn't until governments stepped in and subsidized and forced through regulations that access to things like electricity and running water came to certain parts of the population. This is why I accuse you and other free market advocates of an almost religious zeal. You ignore the actual examples we have had of free market failures in favor of your idealized academic model.

We found the perfect tool for increase of wealth and improvement of our lives - it's free market capitalism

It's not perfect. Read a history book. A large chunk of modern regulation was implemented in response to specific "actually it really happened" failures of the free market. You can rhapsodize all you want about how perfect free markets are. But we've tried them, and they consistently prove worse than regulated markets. You state time and again that free markets are the superior tool for generating wealth, without any real world examples or even theoretical justifications for this statement. You state that wealth generation is the single most important goal for advancing society, without any justification for the statement. Considering that on its face, free market advocacy sounds an awful lot like "I'm a selfish prick that only want to gain the benefits of society without being expected to return anything except what I generously choose", considering that we can look to history for examples of free market failures and actors behaving in manners detrimental to markets DESPITE regulations prohibiting these behaviors, you are profoundly unconvincing with your fact free, theoretical arguments.

Re:wrong from the start

[roman_mir]

Sounds great in theory. In reality, that isn't what happened. Access to these things was provided by the free market where it was deemed profitable to the utility company. It wasn't until governments stepped in and subsidized and forced through regulations that access to things like electricity and running water came to certain parts of the population.

- nonsense.

There is such a concept as 'early adoption', and it's a very normal process, which means that as technology comes into existence it is very expensive and only the most interested individuals and likely those with most funding can afford it.

However as the time goes on, there is more and more supply of the product of ever increasing quality/decreasing cost in normal market conditions, because as something is profitable in high-end markets, it is much more profitable in lower end markets, simply because in lower end markets there is so much more demand, there are that many more people to be served.

Government does not need to step in to mandate that cell phones must be made cheaper and government does not need to subsidize TV manufacturing in order to give the poor TVs, the market does this perfectly well, and it does the same thing with every other good, only interrupted when government steps into the arena and starts clipping competition and collecting racket money.

It's not perfect. Read a history book. A large chunk of modern regulation was implemented in response to specific "actually it really happened" failures of the free market. You can rhapsodize all you want about how perfect free markets are. But we've tried them, and they consistently prove worse than regulated markets

- nonsense.

Capitalism is the most perfect system for wealth generation and distribution that people have invented (so far at least). There is nothing that advances technology and decreases costs and disseminates wealth quicker than desire of people to profit from greater market penetration than the competition.

Considering that on its face, free market advocacy sounds an awful lot like "I'm a selfish prick that only want to gain the benefits of society without being expected to return anything except what I generously choose"

- no, the selfish ones are busy taking what others have earned and 'redistributing' it the way they believe is correct via coercive force of government power.

free market failures and actors behaving in manners detrimental to markets DESPITE regulations prohibiting these behaviors, you are profoundly unconvincing with your fact free, theoretical arguments.

- there is no failure in free market.

Free market always works in the same exact manner, it does not fail.

If you think that failures of the economy expressed through 2008 crash for example are free market failures, then you are blinder than a bat. Free market was providing a solution to the problem created by the government involvement, the solution was the necessary bust, which would restructure the debt and free up the resources mis-allocated by the government, and instead of taking the bitter medicine, provided by the free market, which would have swiftly cured the problem, the Keynesian shamans have decided they will instead continue the sickness by giving the ailing economy a huge dose of pain killers, dulling the pain but worsening the situation further.

Anything you believe is a 'free market failure', is in reality your failure to understand what actually is failing.

The City relied on the integrity of SAIC...

[Anonymous Coward]

'The City relied on the integrity of SAIC...

LOL. L. O. L. I'd like to meet the guy who relies on the "integrity" of any major military-industrial complex contracting company like SAIC, Halliburton, Raytheon, etc. I have shares in the Golden Gate Bridge, Inc. to sell to him, which I print out at the Kinko's around the corner.

Should have hired IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

no doubt.

Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[Sloppy]

Yes, I have actually worked in this field. And yes, payroll is more complicated than it seems on the surface. But it's not that complicated. It's not "I can build a dozen F-14s for less" complicated.

The money spent on these types of applications is just obscene. There's gotta be major corruption in the procurement process. And it's everywhere; this isn't just a NYC problem.

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[Dorkmaster Flek]

You know, this seems to be par for the course with government contracts, and I've honestly never understood why. If my company contracts another company to do Job X for $Y million in Z months/years/whatever, that's a legally binding contract. If they go over budget, or don't deliver on time, or don't do the job they were supposed to do, we don't pay them. Why does the government? Is it because they can just ship it off to the taxpayers? Are they in bed with the companies bidding on the contract and getting lots of hookers and blow? Is it both?

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[rahvin112]

What you usually find in these situations is that there is a defined scope of work and deliverable at the set price. Then every month the client (the city in this case) alters the scope of work which requires that the budget be adjusted. By the end of the day after everyone in the entire client organization has made sure all the changes they want are incorporated the original deadline passed 3 years ago, the developer has been chasing dead ends for entire time and to impliment the new final scope of work is a magnitude more expensive (60million to 600 million).

This isn't the developers fault, at least not entirely. These issues lie almost entirely with the client. Improper planning, scope adjustments and delays almost always fall to the client and they uniformly fail to realize the impact those failings cost. The biggest mistake of the developer is usually in not fully tracking these changes, their costs and time impacts and documenting officially every single time it happened. With a large Public Client like NYC you would need to devote a PM to only tracking scope and deliverable changes who would spend their entire time preparing adjusted costs and formally submitting these to the client BEFORE any work is done on the adjusted scope.

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[Ryanrule]

the problem is salespeople are involved. get rid of them, everything goes much smoother. its not the engineers making money here.

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[Danny Rathjens]

Are they in bed with the companies bidding on the contract and getting lots of hookers and blow?

Does this answer your question?

The city official who was the project's point person, Joel Bondy, resigned in December and had close ties to the suspected mastermind of the scheme.

Gerard Denault, a former executive with Science Applications International Corporation, the company overseeing CityTime, was charged with receiving over $5 million in kickbacks for his work as the project's senior manager.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/nyregion/criticism-for-citytime-project-grows-as-a-manager-is-arrested.html?_r=1

I see lots of comments exasperated about the cost overruns and folks pointing out that these types of systems are more complicated than it seems. But I couldn't find any comments to moderate up that point out the criminal aspects of this project - so here you go. :)

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[adamofgreyskull]

As others have pointed out, it's not hard to imagine this scenario..."Ok, it's been Z years - z months and we know you're nearly done, but we *need* to change requirements A, B and C. We need these changes so badly that we're willing to pay an additional $y million and for the project to run for another Z years." Also, some of the people involved have been siphoning millions off the project. I don't know if they used that to pay for hookers and blow.

Re:Hundreds of millions for payroll software?

[dkf]

I don't know if they used that to pay for hookers and blow.

Hookers and blow, also known as "Supporting the economy of this great city."

The problem is

[bugs2squash]

that it is commonly believed that specifying software is easy. It is very hard even for smart people and to my mind should be avoided if at all possible. What NYC should have done was to find a payroll system they liked, perhaps had it tweaked a little by the vendor where there were irreconcilable differences and then changed their own payroll practices to fit the capabilities of the software. As others have said, it's not as if New York is the only state with a payroll to process.
SAIC make their living out of poorly written specs, they have no interest in getting a decent spec.
Furthermore, this is an area where open source excels, one can generally quickly make a decent prototype and once you have discovered what you like through trial and error you can either use the working prototype as a specification or simply scale-up the software you have and use it for whatever period you choose, you won't be forced to upgrade on a vendor's timetable (another source of "perpetual gravy").

Good

[geekoid]

Too many times contractors will get to a position where they become entrenched and start raising the cost, changing the contract, and never having the intention to actually meet the agreed time and price.

Then politician don't sue because they are afraid it might hurt their image.

We need more public official to call these companies on there shenanigans.

When the Govt pays, you take your time...

[nulled]

The problem with projects when the Govt is involved is this.

It is TAX PAYER money that is paying for it. So, people tend to take their time shall we say, when doing the project. In otherwords, when it is NOT your money at risk, rather tax payer money, there is no risk. If it were an investors money or YOUR money, you would monitor very closely the project and not let it drag on and on, no matter what the excuse is. Pretty simple concept to understand.

Pig in a poke.

[wcrowe]

What SAIC did was morally wrong, BUT I am certain there were a lot of people involved in that project that allowed this to happen. One would assume that the New York City government is not being run by a bunch of ignorant hicks paying top dollar for a pig-in-a-poke. There is plenty of culpability to go around, and some city officials need to be investigated.

How it really works

[Skapare]

• 1. Contract with a clueless city government to build an uber complex software project.
• 2. Drag the project out so they have time to want to change things.
• 3. ???
• 4. PROFIT!

Re:How it really works

[Kittenman]

• 1. Contract with a clueless city government to build an uber complex software project.
• 2. Drag the project out so they have time to want to change things.
• 3. ???
• 4. PROFIT!

Happened with the National Health project in the UK, too. So it's not just 'clueless city governments' but anyone/anything with pots of money and a hankering for something techie.

as a user of time hour software

[decora]

i had a shift that started on sunday night and ended monday morning.

our timesheets were constantly screwed up.

dont get me started on holidays, 'premium hours', overtime thats not really overtime, etc etc etc.

if any vendor had ever worked one of those types of jobs, they might get it.

Spending someone else's money

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when person A is buying a service from person B with person C's money. Person A is perfectly happy to keep expanding the project's scope indefinitely and person B is perfectly happy to comply as long as they get paid.

600M for FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder, how much code we could produce with 600M. Good high quality code. GPLed.

Seriously though. I'm sure quite some FOSS developers would be quite happy with say, 100.000 per year? 150k maybe even? That's 4000-6000 Dev years. So 4000-6000 devs, documenters, testers etc can code for a year at a salary of 100-150k. Pay them 1 mil a year, you still have 600 coders workin'

Just sayin' for 600M you can buy a lot of code. Now of course some of that money would be going to hardware etc as wel. Though I'm sure a lot of code, will be simply going into big pockets of very rich people :)

Get the money back

[Med-trump]

The city should try all possible ways to get the money back. This will make a precedence and might deter those who are sloppy in executing contract jobs.

Overrun by 570 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it started off as a 63 million dollar project. Then costs swelled to over 600 million? WTF? I understand that both water and software projects are much more stable when they are frozen, but unless the scope of this project expanded incredibly, then whoever did the specs on the project failed miserably, and should never be allowed to do specs on a project ever again. Further, the company doing the work should be sued into oblivion. Charging 9.5 times as much (and thats only the requested rebate) is insane. Nowhere else in the 'real world' would anyone spec. a job and then get away with charging 9.5x as much as the spec. "Oh, I can build you a nice house for $250,000..... here's your bill for $2,375,000..."

Not always the integrators fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked in similar spaces, the amount of corruption and incompetence in most govt. IT shops is astounding. I worked on a project for a 3 letter agency once where they required us to use their code check-in/check-out versioning application, which they started off by saying "It's almost finished" This same agency also underwent a process of approving and disapproving infrastructure operating systems. First year, AIX was fine, second year it wasn't, third year we were back to AIX. By the time you work through all of these needless speed bumps AND deal with the whims of elected officials who try to steer software and hardware contracts to their buddies, you're lucky if the system you proposed can even be implemented anymore.

What will be very telling is how SAIC responds to this. The mayor for example, may not want a front-page story created from the thousands of saved e-mails indicating his city's corruption and ineptitude.

I think I've located the problem...

[gstrickler]

Due to union contracts and city regulations, they had to account for leap seconds for anyone who worked overnight. Future of UTC and the Leap Second

Don't forget the myriad of union rules

[Shivetya]

You can be damn sure the rules from all the various contracts signed by the city had to be implemented and I would not doubt some had to be coded directly instead of relying on a table. I have seen some convoluted attendance rules when working for a rent-a-cop agency where we managed formerly city employees. For most rules you can simply make a simple table, others had so many odd conditions that it was far easier to code a specific routine.

citytime

[Anonymous Coward]

I work on that project and most of you has not idea was really happen.
The Mayor was aware of this disaster a long time ago.
Read any of the column by Juan Gonzalez.
This is the gift that keep on giving.
the project cover the entire city, Police Department, Fire,DOI, etc...
every dept has it own way of keeping time, do the math

Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

This shows two things...1) NYC is dumb enough to waste 63 million to upgrade a payroll system. I work for the best IT consulting company in the country and that cost is ridiculous. 2) Any company that goes outside the contract without reason or written consent should be docked money. The project should have been a fixed bid so they didn't care about the length as they weren't paying any more than contracted. Go NYC for not doing the proper research before taking on a project properly.

citytime

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on the citytime project and 99 percent of the review are totally wrong
about what happen in the project.
Read Juan Gonzalez column to get an idea.
I know what happen but this is not the time to talk about that project.
   

SAIC stands for Spies Are In Charge

[Anonymous Coward]

Spies Are In Charge -- And that's why shit happens. Google +SAIC +Paranormal

About Time...

[Anonymous Coward]

SAIC is notoriously poorly run - we've had some of the "products" that barely limped along, never fulfilled their mission, and needed to be replaced almost as soon as it went to production...no I don't work for this government...incidentally this was "shrink wrap" product they'd sell to telephone companies.

SAIC's real product is the "programming-hour"

[Beeftopia]

If your real product - the thing that gets you paid - is the "hour spent programming", you're going to maximize that, and damn the "end product". That's an afterthought. What gets you paid is not the end product, but the hours spent programming. If they're paying SAIC by the number of hours spent on the project, SAIC will maximize the number of hours spent on the project.

Idot Blumberg Hooded by Drive By

[Anonymous Coward]

Genius Mr. Blumberg Mayor of NY has been had.

Will Genius Mr. Blumberg Mayor of NY repay NY the money hooded?

NO!

Governer CUM'N has no message to the faithfull either, execpt just keep CUM'N.

|]

You don't understand forever stamps...

[raehl]

Pretty much any investment will outperform increases in stamp prices. Forever stamps are a way for the post office to MAKE MONEY on the difference, *AND* cut costs associated with having to make the old stamps obsolete when postage rates go up.

If you can get $1 now and make it worth $1.10 later in exchange for spending $1.08 to provide a service later, you'd be an idiot not to do it.

When the client keeps changing specs

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloomberg's administration is corrupt to the core and will lie, cheat, and steal at every opportunity to screw someone out of cash.

Not rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

Why they decided to pay $600M

1. Because they're spending other people's money, and therefore suffer no personal loss when the investment fails.

2. Because the bigger your cash flow, the better positioned you are to leverage that cash flow for personal gain.

and then ask for a refund

Because they see an opportunity to do it all over again.

Re:SAIC == successful projects? Depends

[Anonymous Coward]

Also posting anon... to totally endorse this comment (also about ~8 yrs at SAIC). The company is too different to say this NYC division/section/gruop/what-fuck-ever is like everyone else. The fiefdom issue is still here, the IPO didn't get rid of it ... just consilidated some of the smaller ones. To give you an small example .. that sort of is mandla of the internal issues:

Dr. Beyster: SAIC: "An Employee-Owned Company"
IPO: "From Science to Solutions" (What the fuck does that mean?)

I've met Dahlberg (i.e. studied from station I was running duing a tour)

Some "clusters" are good ... some suck. And, we have a lot of clearances.. therefore a lot of work.

In a lot of ways, even at 44K employees before the IPO ... it was still an engineer run company. Then, the MBAs performed there internal takeover.. (hurting for cash? How the fuck? And damn, that's always the excuse. And why corp. america will soon be America) ... now it's starting to feel like the rest of the CSC or GE bullshit. And all these mistakes ...

Man gallup got that internal employee survey done just in time huh? :)

I wonder what ours cost?

[DarthVain]

I know the one we use is a big pile of steaming garbage. It is used by a big chunk of government. I really wonder what we paid (and are likely still paying) for it?