What seems to be missing (correct me if I'm wrong) is bad incentives. Software projects in government tend to be assigned by two ways:
1) via tenders, where it's a race to the price bottom, and the vendors charge massive sums for change requests or simply to fix what should have worked in the first place, but the government must pay additional money in order to not have wasted the entire sum already spent
2) tenders with specs that are customized so only a select few (or one!) vendor hits the criteria (e.g. must have 20+y of government work history, x% of workers must have top-secret clearances) or lock-in; basically "no one ever got fired for buying IBM/Accidenture". The big vendors of course know this and charge govt through the nose.
Another reason especially in government is a lack of client-side controlling, i.e. there is no qualified staff to review code, architectural decisions or cost/time plannings early (if at all). This also hits home for construction projects.
1) via tenders, where it's a race to the price bottom, and the vendors charge massive sums for change requests or simply to fix what should have worked in the first place, but the government must pay additional money in order to not have wasted the entire sum already spent
2) tenders with specs that are customized so only a select few (or one!) vendor hits the criteria (e.g. must have 20+y of government work history, x% of workers must have top-secret clearances) or lock-in; basically "no one ever got fired for buying IBM/Accidenture". The big vendors of course know this and charge govt through the nose.
Another reason especially in government is a lack of client-side controlling, i.e. there is no qualified staff to review code, architectural decisions or cost/time plannings early (if at all). This also hits home for construction projects.