Re: Where lies the accountability?
A good summary of pretty much any government IT programme with just about any IT supplier. The degree of culpability is variable, though generally magnified 10 fold by the customer. Don't forget that any government IT programme is bid against a spec which is years out of date by the time the contract is signed. (Not always though, I did one project with a 3 month bid cycle, so the requirements fit was great) . This means the first six months is taken up with unplanned requirement revalidation, the customer won't let you add that to the project timescales and budget upfront. The subsequent changes caused by new legislation and departmental reorganisations then spend six months being agreed. In this time the SI has a whole bunch of people sitting around being paid to do nugatory work because you have to deliver to the contract to get paid on time, failure to do so would mean the smart customer commercial team will go after you for penalties for failure to deliver something they don't want. You can also bet that almost all the Customer and SI team who agreed the contract have moved on, usually within 3 months of contract signature, so no one knows what the original point was. The other gem on these massive programs is that the actual recipients/users of the system have no contact with the designers. The designers have to go through a customer team often made up of contractors or consultants from the consultancy houses who interpret the requirements and user feedback to maximise their usefulness, sorry revenue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
