We could go back and forth on this all day. Neither of us has any data to back up our claims of who is the worst offender, although had I the time I might argue motivations.
I'd propose one more differentiating factor.
When a corporate project has cost overruns that corporation has to pay the tabs and is therefore penalized for it (and if it continues the company will eventually be out of business) while I do not suffer (unless I own stock or am employed by said company, in either case I would be able to sell the stock or find another job).
When a government project has cost overruns the managing entity is generally not reprimanded and the funds to finish the project become virtually unlimited. These funds come directly from us as tax paying citizens and reduce the amount of money that could be spent on other things and/or cause cries for tax increases (as if there needs to be a reason for those cries).
I disagree.
While large corporate projects can be prone to the same problems, they rarely (if ever) reach the same level of incompetence and are still allowed to run to completion. A big distinction is that when government projects blow out way beyond their scope they are rewarded with more money, when that happens in a corporation the project is usually shut down.
The government environment encourages waste while the private environment punishes it.
I really don't see how this is flamebait. It's common knowledge that government projects are always over budget, have schedule overruns, and fail to perform as required. I could probably come up with more than 100 example with a single Google search. I think you'd have to do some serious research to find a project/program that actually worked as expected and came in near budget.
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We could go back and forth on this all day. Neither of us has any data to back up our claims of who is the worst offender, although had I the time I might argue motivations. I'd propose one more differentiating factor. When a corporate project has cost overruns that corporation has to pay the tabs and is therefore penalized for it (and if it continues the company will eventually be out of business) while I do not suffer (unless I own stock or am employed by said company, in either case I would be able to sell the stock or find another job). When a government project has cost overruns the managing entity is generally not reprimanded and the funds to finish the project become virtually unlimited. These funds come directly from us as tax paying citizens and reduce the amount of money that could be spent on other things and/or cause cries for tax increases (as if there needs to be a reason for those cries).
I disagree. While large corporate projects can be prone to the same problems, they rarely (if ever) reach the same level of incompetence and are still allowed to run to completion. A big distinction is that when government projects blow out way beyond their scope they are rewarded with more money, when that happens in a corporation the project is usually shut down. The government environment encourages waste while the private environment punishes it.
I really don't see how this is flamebait. It's common knowledge that government projects are always over budget, have schedule overruns, and fail to perform as required. I could probably come up with more than 100 example with a single Google search. I think you'd have to do some serious research to find a project/program that actually worked as expected and came in near budget.