# IBM awarded another big govt contract



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

This is unbelievable. IBM made the Phoenix payroll system, a catastrophe that's going to cost the government $1 billion overall
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...bm-payroll-plan-gone-awry-costing-c-1-billion

And now the federal government (Shared Services Canada, the IT division) signed a $500 million *non competitive* contract with IBM for a new project, separate from Phoenix:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ibm-shared-services-contract-1.4658682

Disgusting! This is almost like rewarding IBM for their Phoenix work. At the very least, the government should have made this a competitive bid. CBC notes that:



> It's the largest sole-source deal ever signed by Shared Services Canada. It may be the largest non-competitive contract in federal procurement history.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Payroll systems are extremely expensive to implement. In the 70s, I accompanied the Alberta Government to Boston to evaluate the PHI Payroll system. The cost to the vendor was just 20% of the overall cost to implement and the government took a pass after buying the software.

A vendor should know this and advise their prospects of the total costs. Phoenix is an example where no one from the government took the responsibility. Still a fiasco though.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

It is a service contract for IBM proprietary software.......hence it is awarded to IBM.


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## milhouse (Nov 16, 2016)

I don't know where the core the problems were and who was responsible for what but it would be interesting to understand who was managing the project and what the governance structure was. 
With a project as complex as this there needs to be a lot of effort during early project planning and requirements gathering. Governance would likely be a ***** too with all the stakeholders to manage.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

It was the Harper government's screw-up because they were so eager to lay public service workers off.

_IBM said it told senior federal project managers the Conservative decision to start rolling out a new pay system in October 2015, which was slated to be fully in place in December 2015, was “not realistic.” The company says it advised the federal government should delay the 2015 launch for at least six to eight months, until July or August 2016.

But IBM’s advice was rejected, senior executives said. 

Federal officials told IBM the project start could be delayed only until February 2016, and the second phase that would see all departments using the new software had to “go live” by April 2016 because the government had already sent out *notifications to the hundreds of clerks who processed paycheques in the federal government that their jobs were being eliminated by April.* IBM dealt with senior officials at the assistant deputy minister level, and did not directly deal with ministers, the company said. _

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...deral-governments-phoenix-payroll-system.html


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

Even Bozo Trudeau's ministers admit the roll out botch up was their fault. They also ignored the advise of their own consultants to delay the roll out lol They also ignored even their own PSAC employees telling them it wasn't ready.



> Just prior to the February 2016 launch, testing on the system was surprisingly incomplete, along with a large number of major defects in Phoenix that had "no planned fix date," say the consultants, who looked at everything that happened between 2008 and April 2016.
> 
> Still, the governing Liberals gave the go-ahead for the project early last year and since its launch, Phoenix has resulted in thousands of public servants being either overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all.


Incompetent Brison and his deputy minister even admitted it. 



> "To be clear: The file is ours to fix and we will."


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...system-before-rollout-report/article36504254/


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

It's a contract for proprietary software. There is literally nothing you could do, unless you want to start from scratch again.

Do you really think that it would cost less than $790M to redo the entire Old Age Security, Child Benefits program, and Employment Insurance, essentially from scratch? How much was the Phoenix implementation again? This is much bigger. By the way, are you blaming IBM for Phoenix, when the government has already accepted blame? How many times do you see governments accepting blame for private contractors? They screwed up, IBM didn't, and they know it.

Lot of fear mongering here. James, the title of your post and the content is misinformed and exactly the type of nonsense you see in mainstream media all the time. It's bad enough that I almost think it's just trolling.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

You don't think IBM screwed up on Phoenix? Maybe we should start there... did IBM do their job properly?


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

James
Maybe you can help us by telling us what qualifications you have to judge?
e.g. how many payroll systems have you automated?


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

james4beach said:


> You don't think IBM screwed up on Phoenix? Maybe we should start there... did IBM do their job properly?


What project info are you basing this decision on? 
Or are you depending on the high level press reports?


Different gov't (Ontario) but on a similar project I can recall the consultants flagging for at least a year to a year and half that the combination of a bad security design in addition to bad use of the reporting software likely would not scale and would be a major problem.

Gov't staff were skeptical, thought the super powerful server was up to the task and dismissed any questions or suggestions to verify.

The first run for two of the smaller ministries settled the issue as the load process for the monthly reports took over forty five days. *Then* it was an issue but too late in the game to make any design changes - limiting what the remedy could be considered.



As another example - the gov't employee running the conversion process on their own (after being trained/watching the consultant run at least four other ministry runs) didn't like the converted numbers. Instead of restoring the backup to restart the process - he kept running the conversion program until he liked the numbers he spot checked. Not surprisingly, errors were reported (or at least the ones that were not in the employee's favour) over the next several weeks. 

The first error was compounded by the executive preferring to stick to the schedule to keep their bonus. Twice a week meetings reported a growing list of errors in the thousands with three or four reported to be fixed a week. That is three or four errors - not hundred or thousand. The growing backlog did not persuade the decision maker away from the plan that "no need to do anything beyond slowly fixing the mistakes". 


Then there was the manager in charge of the programmers who did not react to being told the net work the programmer had done was nothing. The first question was what project work was done where the answer was that operational work had stopped this. Less then ten minutes later, the second question was what operational work was done where the answer was project work prevented this. 


While I am sure similar happened for Phoenix, without far more details - it is not clear what were the critical factors. I suspect that like my co-worker claims, it has not helped to be training mostly new people as those with experience preferred to move to other jobs instead of relocate.



Cheers


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

This is another legacy problem from the Harper government.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

I have no knowledge of the project. But I believe that we can take at least four things are given:

-there is probably enough blame to go around to all parties-vendor, customer, subK's, consultants

-the cost will escalate over and above what we are told, including remediation, QA, third party, and testing/training/implementation

-we will never really know what happened nor do any of the parties have an interest in speaking to the issue

-forget anything that the politicians are saying. They do not know what the real issues are and they do not care. Their goal is to use this unfortunate circumstance to further their own careers and their respective public images.

Finally, let's not fool ourselves. Project failures occur in the private sector as well. The scale may be smaller but the comparative miss can be just as significant. The only difference is that it is easier to keep it quiet and easier to hide some of the costs in different expense line items. And someone or some people usually get the chop.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Easier for private industry to hide the middle stuff, sure.

Target Canada had a hard time hiding their problems.


> The checkout system was glitchy and didn’t process transactions properly. Worse, the technology governing inventory and sales was new to the organization; no one seemed to fully understand how it all worked.


http://marketingmag.ca/brands/what-really-went-wrong-with-target-canada-166300/

Sounds similar to the complaints about the Miramichi pay centre having too many new staff.

Sobeys went being a reference customer for good implementations for SAP to five days without their systems where they walked away from SAP to being back to a reference customer over a period of about seven years.
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/sobeys-says-goodbye-sap/29540

Though three years after their buyout of Safeway, similar problems seem to be happening.
http://business.financialpost.com/n...elves-massive-losses-and-drove-customers-away


Cheers


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I've changed the thread title in response to the comment that it seemed like I was trolling. Whether these are proprietary systems or not, I still think the government should seek other alternatives.

It's in the taxpayer's best interest to look at all options. The computing world is full of non-proprietary solutions, and many big corporations make use of this. The government is stuck in an old world kind of thinking where they seem to think that only Oracle, IBM and the other giants can take care of "computer".

Computer systems have become such a major part of government (and economy in general) that it's no longer an area where you can just "hire a firm" to create a box, and install the box and give everyone a user manual. This is such an outdated mode of thinking, and it's costing us billions of $ of inefficiency and waste.

Some companies make the same mistake, thinking that computers and security are an off-the-shelf thing. They still see computer staff (computer scientists & engineers) as "IT costs" and expenses. Absolutely the wrong way of thinking. There is a reason that high-tech companies are eating everyone's lunch. It's because they realized that computing is central to the modern economy, not a peripheral "cost".

The companies... and govts... that will be successful are those who hire significant numbers of computer experts, and stop just trying to outsource everything. Build the expertise in house. It's absolutely necessary in the modern world. For example, you have in house managers (people who are experts in your processes). You can't just outsource or contract out each management activity.

Similarly, you need in-house computer experts, so that they develop a deep understanding of how your technology systems work, and build new systems. Yes it's expensive but unless you do this, your competitors are going to eat your lunch.

We're also just handing money over to foreign companies because of minds that are stuck in that model. Billions of dollars are being wasted by a bunch of middle managers who think everything will be OK if they just hire IBM or another well known brand to do their "IT stuff" with "computer".


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

james4beach said:


> ... Whether these are proprietary systems or not, I still think the government should seek other alternatives.
> 
> It's in the taxpayer's best interest to look at all options. The computing world is full of non-proprietary solutions, and many big corporations make use of this. The government is stuck in an old world kind of thinking where they seem to think that only Oracle, IBM and the other giants can take care of "computer" ...


Do tell ... what corps of size have gone with non-proprietary software for their payroll?

I can recall the startup in Waterloo that was using an Excel spreadsheet but they only had about sixty employees. All of my employers, who are at most mid-sized use proprietary software/systems. Everyone I talk to, even for Cloud payroll are of the proprietary flavour.

The other question is whether the non-proprietary software/system can handle all of the union contract variables (ex. leave amounts, when a doctor's note is required, bumping rules, secondment rules, etc).


Document management, web servers, Portals, particular functions such as SSL, utilities etc. have had open source versions used. That seems to be similar to the gov't as CRA had to shutdown in 2014 to patch open source software and it seems their recent 2017 outage is for similar reasons.




james4beach said:


> ... Computer systems have become such a major part of government (and economy in general) that it's no longer an area where you can just "hire a firm" to create a box, and install the box and give everyone a user manual. This is such an outdated mode of thinking, and it's costing us billions of $ of inefficiency and waste ... The companies... and govts... that will be successful are those who hire significant numbers of computer experts, and stop just trying to outsource everything. Build the expertise in house ... Yes it's expensive but unless you do this, your competitors are going to eat your lunch ...


Yet those successful types say doing exactly this is how they are able to focus on what makes them successful.
Amazon didn't "build the expertise in house" - they hired cloud based Workday.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/07/amazon-workday/

Their 300K employees with another 100K to come is a drop in the bucket compared to the earlier signing of Walmart. They went outside for their over two million world wide employees.

ADP is about to hit the seventy year mark in the payroll business with IBM and SalesForce as customers. 

Which successful company are you thinking of that built their own payroll system from non-proprietory sources?




james4beach said:


> ... We're also just handing money over to foreign companies because of minds that are stuck in that model. Billions of dollars are being wasted by a bunch of middle managers who think everything will be OK if they just hire IBM or another well known brand to do their "IT stuff" with "computer".


So are you going to petition Amazon, Walmart, IBM, Saleforce, American Express etc. for the billions wasted by going with an outside company instead of building their expertise/systems internally?

Or maybe ... just maybe ... you are over simplifying things?


Cheers


*PS*
Are the following companies supposed to be newer, better ones?
AirB&B, NetFlix, CareerBuilder.com, blablacar, Centrify, Citrix, clearlink, Cloudera and Cognex Corp to name a few.

All of them are Workday customers.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

kcowan said:


> James
> Maybe you can help us by telling us what qualifications you have to judge?
> e.g. how many payroll systems have you automated?


Still waiting for an answers rather than motherhood statements from James.

At this point I would categorize his rant as one from a "know-it-all" who has no relevant experience.

Please inform us James. We need an expert.


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## TomB19 (Sep 24, 2015)

james4beach said:


> Whether these are proprietary systems or not, I still think the government should seek other alternatives.


James, I agree with pretty much everything you have written. Also, it's an embarrassment we still have an older generation who thinks "nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM". At this point, people should be fired for hiring IBM.

The litany of failed projects from IBM, CGI, and a couple of other companies too large to be productive is ridiculous and people still contract them.

As it happens, IBM has some super smart people and they do have some successful projects.

The real problem here is there isn't a large group of excellent companies to chose from. Organizations that do this work are huge and stoogy. I'm not aware of any small and flexible systems that could do this.

If you're the GoC and you have a ton of legacy systems which need to interface to a payroll system, the long list of options is going to be a very short list. Imagine how many legacy mainframe applications they have and think about what company is likely to support those applications. IBM may have been the only logical choice.

In the time they've had, they should have been able to fix anything that was wrong, no matter what it was. Something is very wrong with Phoenix and it isn't the coders. If management was doing their job properly, there would be a signed off functional specification, a contract with milestones and penalties, and there would be a motivated company putting whomever necessary into the project to cause a positive result.

Zero chance this is a problem with the coders. Anyone who has ever worked for/with IBM knows exactly what's happening with this.


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## TomB19 (Sep 24, 2015)

I made a phone call and discovered IBM is trying to hire a COBOL CICS developer for zOS for a GoC position.

CICS changed the world and is one of the most powerful architectures to revolutionize data processing. I absolutely adore CICS, although I also like MQ and any message broker architecture. It would seem I have a fetish for middleware.

None the less, the fact the GoC is looking for a greybeard like me to work on COBOL CICS development likely provides insight into why GoC selected IBM.

Hey... I just got a job offer. lol!


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

TomB19 said:


> James, I agree with pretty much everything you have written ...


Interesting ... what's your take on who is going to eat Amazon and Walmart's lunch because they outsourced to Workday?
Well Workday is the software - I have no idea whether IBM won the implementation contract or PwC or a small boutique firm.




TomB19 said:


> ... The real problem here is there isn't a large group of excellent companies to chose from. Organizations that do this work are huge and stoogy. I'm not aware of any small and flexible systems that could do this.


Are we talking project consultants/firms for the selected software or the hardware/software here?




TomB19 said:


> ... If you're the GoC and you have a ton of legacy systems which need to interface to a payroll system, the long list of options is going to be a very short list. Imagine how many legacy mainframe applications they have ... IBM may have been the only logical choice ...


The provincial gov't had similar with IBM being out of the picture for implementing Peoplesoft. The data conversion was the closest to an "interface issue" I can recall. That was in the '90's so I am not sure with the ways that have been added to Peoplesoft to handle interfaces from/to legacy mainframe systems since, it would be an issue in 2015.




TomB19 said:


> ... In the time they've had, they should have been able to fix anything that was wrong, no matter what it was. Something is very wrong with Phoenix and it isn't the coders ... If management was doing their job properly, there would be a signed off functional specification, a contract with milestones and penalties, and there would be a motivated company putting whomever necessary into the project to cause a positive result ... Zero chance this is a problem with the coders. Anyone who has ever worked for/with IBM knows exactly what's happening with this.


IBM has improved then?

They seemed surprised when after signing a contract in Alberta that guaranteed local resources so that no travel time would be lost or expenses to pay for, only a few people wanted to relocate from Toronto or Vancouver to Calgary. Some they sent to "staff" the contract had barely used the software and had never done an upgrade.



Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

TomB19 said:


> I made a phone call and discovered IBM is trying to hire a COBOL CICS developer for zOS for a GoC position ...
> None the less, the fact the GoC is looking for a greybeard like me to work on COBOL CICS development likely provides insight into why GoC selected IBM ...


GoC is forced into hiring IBM to implement Peoplesoft because they need zOS developers?
I'd have thought they'd want to avoid retraining the greybeards.

Either way, it seems GoC is in good company with JP Morgan, the Auto Club of Southern California, Huntington Bank, Charles Schwab, IBM, MasterCard, Publishers Clearing House, First Data, Citi and Norfolk Southern Corp (a railway) all hiring.


Sadly or maybe not - one of my previous employers took a pass on zOS - though they were looking for Cobol CICS developers a few years ago.


Cheers


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Eclectic12 said:


> Do tell ... what corps of size have gone with non-proprietary software for their payroll?


I think you need the computer experts to select the best solutions. If that solution is Workday, great. Or maybe Xero or one of many other solutions that exist. It's a big world. What payroll and HR software do the top companies in Singapore use?

Our small company works with companies like Amazon. They buy software and services from us, but they also know how to properly evaluate constraints and requirements, how to judge the quality of what we're giving them, etc. That's what seems to be missing in the government -- it's knowledge and expertise in the space.

At the office today, we were discussing why companies like IBM seem to get so much large enterprise business by default. One recurring answer is that the people making decision on technology don't have a lot of background in computer systems themselves. They are business people who don't have their roots in technology. They recognize brand names, and feel it's safer for their job security to go with known/recognized titles.

There's even a saying out there: "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"

In my view all of these (Phoenix, and the disastrous US healthcare web system rollouts under Obama) are failures in management. These are the disasters you get when non-tech-savvy managers make decisions on technical systems. They just are not cut out to do this work. We should either be hiring computer system experts into management positions, or properly enlisting the help of people with real knowledge in this space.

- In traditional engineering work, it's an experienced senior engineer (someone who has worked with the guts of things and worked their way up) who eventually becomes a manager and decision maker, because they really understand how things work.

- In law, it's a senior lawyer who (many years ago) started with small legal cases, and gained decades of experience, who eventually becomes a lead council or head of a legal division

- So why are IT managers made up of business people with no clue how computers work, who've never put together software on their own, never worked on large teams as producers of software?

You wouldn't take a marketing person and make them the top lawyer in a firm. It just shocks me when I see the lack of credentials in IT decision makers. They have backgrounds in business, finance, sales, marketing... seemingly everything except technology.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Take a look at the people making these decisions:

Chief Operating Officer, has an MBA and some law background.
http://www.ssc-spc.gc.ca/pages/coo-ce-eng.html
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/johnaglowackijr

Perhaps more up to date,
https://www.canada.ca/en/shared-services/corporate/organizational-structure.html

Executive Vice-President: law degrees.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Cyber and IT Security: from LinkedIn I see that Mr. Sehgal has an MBA and a Bachelors in Administration.

The top decision makers need to have degrees and experience in engineering and computer science. They are responsible for massive technology infrastructures. Where are the degrees? Are you kidding me??


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The Harper government should have heeded the old axiom..........don't fix what isn't broken.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

james4beach said:


> I think you need the computer experts to select the best solutions. If that solution is Workday, great ...


Then why distract from your point by talking about "The computing world is full of non-proprietary solutions, and many big corporations make use of this" when Workday is none of these? As I understand it - there is no database access to Workday so " =a deep understanding of how your technology systems work" is not possible.




james4beach said:


> ... It's a big world. What payroll and HR software do the top companies in Singapore use?


Not sure why Singapore is an appropriate example to follow as they seem to have a much more streamlined tax system. It is not thorough research but checking job postings as well as top ten lists for payroll software, there is ADP, SAP, Payroll2U, Times Software, Oracle and Peoplesoft in use.

Many of the vendor web sites have something along the lines of "payroll outsourcing" with several offering their consultants to setup the system.




james4beach said:


> ... Our small company works with companies like Amazon. They buy software and services from us, but they also know how to properly evaluate constraints and requirements, how to judge the quality of what we're giving them, etc. That's what seems to be missing in the government -- it's knowledge and expertise in the space.


Maybe ... it would certainly match some of what I have seen. It is not exclusive to the GoC as similar has happened in the private companies I have worked for.

The other question is what reports/data points do you have to conclude this is specific to GoC and/or this particular project?
Singapore seems to be a good example for you yet they use Peoplesoft, just as Phoenix does. Without confirmation, I can't be sure but this suggests there may have been the knowledge and expertise that you allege is missing as the software choice may not have been the problem.




james4beach said:


> ... One recurring answer is that the people making decision on technology don't have a lot of background in computer systems themselves. They are business people who don't have their roots in technology. They recognize brand names, and feel it's safer for their job security to go with known/recognized titles.
> 
> There's even a saying out there: "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"


I guess my employer at the time was a trend setter - they fired a VP of IT *for* picking IBM. Prior to that, the one that contradicted the service beareau's cost estimates while recommending against it was fired as the service beareau's bills climbed too high, after he was over ruled then forced to go with the flow.




james4beach said:


> ... In my view all of these (Phoenix, and the disastrous US healthcare web system rollouts under Obama) are failures in management. These are the disasters you get when non-tech-savvy managers make decisions on technical systems ... They just are not cut out to do this work. We should either be hiring computer system experts into management positions, or properly enlisting the help of people with real knowledge in this space ... why are IT managers made up of business people with no clue how computers work, who've never put together software on their own, never worked on large teams as producers of software? ... It just shocks me when I see the lack of credentials in IT decision makers. They have backgrounds in business, finance, sales, marketing... seemingly everything except technology.


You are assuming that the only reason for problems is a lack of expertise or willingness to trust those who know. Some of the hardest to understand decisions have been made by experts who were promoted to the decision making level.

As to why so few with skills are in those roles - most that I know don't like the rest of the package that comes with the job. One became the decision maker at least a decade after it was offered. When asked why the delay and why he finally took the job - his answer was that he didn't want the job, suffered through a series of other people's mistakes and then decided it was better to put up with what he hated to prevent dealing with another decision maker's mistakes. 

This is why the few I have met who were able to do both as well as talk in language that both camps understood were able to command a fortune in compensation.

Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

james4beach said:


> Take a look at the people making these decisions ...
> Executive Vice-President: law degrees.
> Assistant Deputy Minister, Cyber and IT Security: from LinkedIn I see that Mr. Sehgal has an MBA and a Bachelors in Administration.
> 
> ...


Are you concerned about NetFlix?
Their chief product officer is listed as having a degree in physics and astronomy from Yale. 
If he isn't making the technology decisions than likely the CFO David Wells is. He has an undergrad degree from the University of Virginia then an MBA as well as a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Amazon AWS?
The CEO of AWS Andy Jassy has a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, followed by an MBA from Harvard Business School. 
His VP of software Adam Bosworth, has a Harvard bachaelor's degree in History. 
His SVP, utility computing services, Charles Bell seems to only have a California State University, Fullerton with a degree in Business Administration.


Cheers


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Not certain why all the discussion. Does anyone have any first hand insight into what really transpired and why the project ended up in the ditch? I doubt it very much. Because if they did, they would have been told to keep quiet for a number of good reasons. I doubt whether many have even had experience or exposure to IT projects of this magnitude. Everything else is pure conjecture.

I expect senior managers/VP's to lead. They are typically NOT subject matter experts if only because they have been managing, not practicing. They are paid to be good leaders, thought leaders, etc not subject matter experts. They have staff and consultants to make recommendations and vet solutions/vendors/proposals. I know of many high level consultants who could be referenced as experts in their field but would make terrible program managers, project managers, or managers in general.


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## TomB19 (Sep 24, 2015)

I've had exposure to projects of this magnitude. I can't say more but I have a pretty good idea.

Does that mean I'm the only one who's opinion matters?

As far as VPs go, it's clear you don't understand but we can discuss it. Not every VP is a micromanaging blow-hard but enough are as to cost business a ton of money.

There is a power balance between technical people who want to gold plate everything and managers who need to keep cost contained that is rarely a healthy balance. It is invariable swing hard to one side.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

ian said:


> Not certain why all the discussion. Does anyone have any first hand insight into what really transpired and why the project ended up in the ditch? I doubt it very much. Because if they did, they would have been told to keep quiet for a number of good reasons ...


While I generally agree - I thought the reason for the discussion was a bit clearer.

Some seem to associate issues that exist in the industry with GoC, that may or may not apply. Or have made private corps versus GoC claims that as a private corp employee - I have yet to see or hear of any matching private corps that do what is alleged.




ian said:


> ... I doubt whether many have even had experience or exposure to IT projects of this magnitude. Everything else is pure conjecture ...


In terms of numbers ... probably. 

Personally - I'd have to find the numbers to confirm but I recall the Ontario Gov't payroll project included in my comments was for something over 80,000 where wiki says puts 120,000 for the Phoenix pay system. I am not involved in the payroll area at my current employer but support something just under 100,000 users for other Peoplesoft applications.

So while it is conjecture - it is based relevant knowledge/experience.




ian said:


> ... I expect senior managers/VP's to lead ... I know of many high level consultants who could be referenced as experts in their field but would make terrible program managers, project managers, or managers in general.


Which is why when they successfully combine both - they are one of the few as well as well paid, heavily recruited.


*PS*
It reminds me of how when I was in high school the "spend it or lose it next year" budget system was railed against. So far, I have yet to work for a private employer that doesn't use the same budget system so it seems useless to complain about the public system when it is a broader issue.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I don't know the details of what happened here but I'd love to learn more.

However I do know quite a few details of large software and hardware vendors supplying expensive systems to US government customers, and I can tell you that the US government is absolutely getting ripped off. These firms like Oracle are selling some real junk to the US govt, over-charging and under delivering.

The material I see in govt presentations is hilarious. It's just pages of marketing speak and buzzwords. Real engineers and scientists are better at seeing through this bull**** but somehow, key decision makers always fall for the marketing crap.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

I don't know the details for this one or the US gov't ones being referred to.

While on training for Oracle and EMC products - I have had class mates complain about similar to what I have see. The technical types pick what they think is the best fit, it requires configuration as well as changes to the business processes. Management wants the design/finished product to be driven by the business reps. The business reps take the sports car design kit that could end up being a ferrari but their decisions build a model T ford that uses tank treads to move. Everyone hates the end result where the technical folks blame the business folks decisions plus managements backing of the business folks while the business folks blame the technical folks for picking such a crappy product/vendor.

One of my favourites was the year and a half battle over a performance issue. At the first meeting I attended, there was the client project manager (PM) with there technical staff who were sure there was a problem. There was the implementation PM with their technical staff who were sure there was no problem as only about twenty people were using the ten environments so several were sitting idle. The third party consultant PM seemed confused as to how to proceed. All told, there was about nineteen people in the room.

When I had a chance to speak, I indicated I was new to the issue/project but wondered how comparing the hardware vendors specs to what was being run to look for possible issues had gone. Dead silence as no one in the room had done this. I pointed out that is seemed suspect to have the specs set for two environments running on database X where as I understood it, what was being run was ten environments running on database Y. New specs were requested where parameter changes as well as added hardware changed the performance.

For better or worse, there were at least three engineers in the performance meeting.


It is a big world out there with lots of variations - some failed projects are the decision maker falling for marketing material, some are a so-so decision that better management would have made work, some are good production selection but poor use of the product and some are not a project failure but the newly hired decision maker wanting to put their stamp on the company.


Cheers


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