
BBC IT project to save £17.9m cost it £38.2m net - sunsai
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/07/bcc_mps_report/
======
jameskilton
Outsourcing to the lowest bidder leads to a massively over-budget, failed
project.

Why does everyone have to relearn this same lesson over and over again? Hasn't
there been enough massive software failures in this world for _someone_ to
start to take notice?

~~~
simonw
There was no cheapest bidder in this case - Siemens got the job without
competition, likely as part of the BBC's questionable 10 year contract to
outsource pretty much everything to Siemens.

------
bruce511
Hang on a minute. Is it only me or are the conclusions a little disingenuous?

a) Is it fairly normal for projects of this size to be over-budget? If so is
their overrun more or less than the norm of projects of equivalent size?

b) Is it fairly normal for large projects, spanning multiple years, to enjoy
some feature creep and specification changes? If so did this project exceed
that norm?

c) Is there any correlation, with projects in this sort of price bracket,
between "in house" and "outsourcing" when it comes to budget or time overruns?

In short - it seems to me the conclusions are easier said than done;

    
    
        * A senior leader who has a track record of successful delivery of large, complex software development projects
    

No doubt there are lots of folk with this on their resume. And I'm guessing
they're really cheap. Or perhaps they're really, really scarce and probably
don't want to work on a BBC salary. And if they _do_ hire such a person, next
there'll be headlines about how he makes more than the Prime Minister.

    
    
        * Clear roles and responsibilities
    

I'm not even gonna comment on this one...

    
    
        * Cooperation between, and integration of, the various functions on a project, including development, deployment and support
    

yeah - exactly - and where do you think most of the overruns came from in the
first place. This sort of endless "integration" is code-speak for a shifting
specification, not exactly the best way to get on budget.

    
    
        * Clear and effective project governance with the appropriate representation on each group or board from across the project, business and suppliers.
    

yay. Or in other words. More Managers. Yeah. That's the solution - throw more
people at it.

Now I know nothing about the project, but something tells me that the fact
they have a system at all is because all these things were done to some
degree, and the fact that it ran over was because, well, big projects have
shifting goals, with plenty of people contributing anything they feel like,
while some engineers write a program to keep all of them happy.

And I bet they don't take this team, and give them another large govt. project
to work on. Rather than accept that they've learned a lot, and will do better
next time, they'll get an all new group in to do the next one.

Of course I, and any other developer reading this, will have huge opinions
about how they messed up, and how could _any_ system cost that much in the
first place. It's dead easy to design a system when you don't know the
specification, or ultimately have to deliver it to the end users.

------
fendale
It always baffles me why an organisation with a large number of highly
technical staff decide to outsoure things en-mass to suppliers.

I currently work for a company with a large number of highly skilled IT
people, but it still insists on outsourcing projects en-mass, despite failure
after failure (with a fairly loose definition of failure, which can be very
late projects, or unmaintainable code bases, or bug after bug after bug ...).

Granted there may not be enough full time staff to take the project on, but
surely things would be more successful by brining in a pool of contracts to
work inhouse alongside the full timers?

~~~
gaius
An outsourced project that delivers on time but is unmaintainable _is_ a
success... To the executive who gets promoted and leaves a poison chalice
behind to scupper his rival.

