Lack of Experience?
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UK celebrates 25 years of wasteful, 'underperforming' government IT projects • The Register[^] Seriously? The ROOT cause of under-performing government IT projects is the "lowest bid" contracting system.Here's how it usually goes: 0) Government asks for bids on a new project. 1) Since the project is new, there is no current incumbent entity from which to gauge salaries, so bids come in at a reasonable (?) pay scale for the devs. 2) Two years later (or whatever the re-compete time frame might be), the incumbent re-bids, and competitors undercut the incumbent with their bids, thus winning the contract. 3) The new contractor company now has to find a way to keep the existing devs, usually be negotiating lower salaries, reduced benefits, or both. Of course, this causes a number of the experienced devs to leave (pissed off no doubt), and the new contractor company will fill those empty seats with devs that will take less money (and that means devs with less experience). 4) Every re-compete cycle, repeat steps 2 and 3, until the result is such a severe reduction of expertise on the dev team that there is nobody left that can actually do the work. 5) Fingers are pointed, the project is abandoned, and chalked up to a "lack of experience" on the part of the devs. Because management couldn't possible be the f*ckin problem. I'm not a bitter old man, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
UK celebrates 25 years of wasteful, 'underperforming' government IT projects • The Register[^] Seriously? The ROOT cause of under-performing government IT projects is the "lowest bid" contracting system.Here's how it usually goes: 0) Government asks for bids on a new project. 1) Since the project is new, there is no current incumbent entity from which to gauge salaries, so bids come in at a reasonable (?) pay scale for the devs. 2) Two years later (or whatever the re-compete time frame might be), the incumbent re-bids, and competitors undercut the incumbent with their bids, thus winning the contract. 3) The new contractor company now has to find a way to keep the existing devs, usually be negotiating lower salaries, reduced benefits, or both. Of course, this causes a number of the experienced devs to leave (pissed off no doubt), and the new contractor company will fill those empty seats with devs that will take less money (and that means devs with less experience). 4) Every re-compete cycle, repeat steps 2 and 3, until the result is such a severe reduction of expertise on the dev team that there is nobody left that can actually do the work. 5) Fingers are pointed, the project is abandoned, and chalked up to a "lack of experience" on the part of the devs. Because management couldn't possible be the f*ckin problem. I'm not a bitter old man, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013Only 25 years? Government projects have been underperforming since IT was a thing!