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Not Just Healthcare.gov: NASA Has 'Significant Problems' With $2.5B IT Contract

Posted by Soulskill on from the moving-at-the-speed-of-government dept.

schwit1 writes "According to the Inspector General, NASA and HP Enterprise Services have encountered significant problems implementing the $2.5 billion Agency Consolidated End-User Services (ACES) contract, which provides desktops, laptops, computer equipment and end-user services such as help desk and data backup. Those problems include 'a failed effort to replace most NASA employees' computers within the first six months and low customer satisfaction,' the report states (PDF). It adds that NASA lacked the technical and cultural readiness for an agencywide IT delivery model and did not offer clear contract requirements, while HP failed to deliver on multiple promises."

4 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Typical.... by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is what happens when you under fund the IT budget, and put in management positions MORONS that do not have a strong IT background. If the IT director can not build a pc by hand from parts and then not only install the OS, but all the drivers and then configure it completely, then configure a Cisco switch and router, he is not fit to be in a management role of IT.

    Yet corporations and the Government instead put people with ZERO clue about IT to begin with in the role of management and upper management.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Typical.... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed. As a former U.S. govt. employee, I can honestly say that the red tape is 70% of why I left. Between security ("IA") policies that gave no consideration to productivity, and purchasing requirements that ignored opportunity costs and red-tape-compliance labor costs, I just didn't feel like I'd get as much software developed during my career as I wanted to.

    2. Re:Typical.... by ebh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, this is what happens when you underTHINK the IT budget. HP and other services organizations want you to believe that all you have to do is write them a check, and all your IT troubles will magically disappear. Instead, what really happens is that all your problems are still there, with one more layer of bureaucratic delays and miscommunications thrown in. The company I work for outsourced their IT to HP, going so far as to sell a lot of their server infrastructure (the actual hardware) to HP, and it's been a disaster, only part of which is HP's fault.

    3. Re:Typical.... by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In my life I've had only one boss that respected IT personnel. None of them were technical, and had some strange image in their heads of a magical fairy land where us IT folk would wave our wands and shit would get done.

      I had one non-programmer boss who proposed an amazing CONTACT FORM to her bosses, and I was required to be there so I could take notes and implement it. After watching her presentation, I was asked if I had any questions or comments. I had comments. Gems like: "Why am I putting EACH FIELD on a separate page? That's going to cause the users to submit the form 10 times before they're done" and "I'm supposed to look these addresses up in the CRM, but the CRM guys have plainly stated over the years that they will never ever Ever EVER let anyone query their DB, did something change?".

      By the end of the meeting, the contact form was cancelled and my new task was to make a slideshow screensaver for someone's special project.

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      "Lame" - Galaxar