Little things that get up your nose

[AlexL]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

I think you've verified my thoughts "Customers who didn't know what they wanted" is a defence oft used after a glorious f**k up! The customer allways knows what they want - by definition. They may not know what technology or solution they want, but they know the function they require - it is the job of the professional (in all industries) to translate the customer function to an engineering solution.
If sweeping generalizations get up your nose then fine. I will retract my statement, and just say that "A Lot" instead of "ALL" IT projects are just making Andersen etc rich, and failing their clients. And in fact i'll not generalize at all and just be specific and talk about the NHS system that started your rant and that 18 Billion is absolutely outrageous for an IT project. Just think about that number for a minute 18 BILLION pounds. If you spend a million pounds per day it would take 50 YEARS to spend 18 billion pounds. Over 5 years you would need to spend 10 million pounds each and every day thats 7 grand per minute, for 5 years.

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[pragmatist]

Re: AND!!!!

If it's a private phone are you aware that you can stop them doing this ?

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !

 

[halcyon]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

Have you heard a complaint from the media, or an opposition party about spending £18 billion, last week in the golf a chap picks up £1 mill for winning a golf match. Do we here complaints, NO, but someone runs a firm that employes 1,000's and gets paid £500,000 and it's headlines. We are a Nation were the bigger the budget the better the press, sportpersons and media people can earn £10's mill and it's great headlines, you work in industry and make something, your a money grabber.Why do IT systems fail, we no longer have designer's/engineer's, just uni students. Wife joined one of the Americam computor firms in the late 70's, one site they had then had 250+ computors networked, these were running around 20K ram, with card readers, cassett tapes and the big Winchester 1Meg drives. They worked because engineers had that little memory to work with it had to be right. To-day we have that much power that if at first it does not work, bolt a bit more on the end, then a bit more, then the update, then the customer mod, etc, etc, etc, then try and work out why it falls over.
These days with the eqipment we have IT should be getting cheaper, not dearer.

Brian

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[beancounter]

Sorry to butt in....

...but I think that pheran has a point. I've been involved with a number of IT implementations over the years in small or medium sized companies, which have usually had mixed results, and would offer the following thoughts:

1) Users "knowing what they want" is often a euphemism for not changing a possibly outmoded way of working, which will probably have lots of manual work-arounds and exceptions - a nightmare for the IT guys to create a solution for. I can imagine in some of our more feudal public sector structures this could be hell.

2) A major cause of problems is lack of management committment to what is essentially a change-management process. Often (based on my observation only) some sectors of management are wedded to the status quo, as it protects their empire/status etc. Again, I can visualise this being an order of magnitude more serious in a huge public sector IT project than in an SME.

3) The IT profession, however, are not entirely blameless, as there can be a tendency to focus on the technology, rather than the end solution. But organisations cannot really use this as an alibi, as it's quite easy for potential users to say (to quote a manufacturing colleague of mine ) - "I don't give a *** what you call this gizmo - can it track my stock?" or whatever.

I could go on a bit longer, but I'd better get back to trying to extract some archive data from an unfriendly IT system....

<hr width=100% size=1>Fabricati Diem, punc

 

[Magic_Sailor]

Oh! You mean the Wife!

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://practical-business.co.uk>Click for website!</A>

 

[Twister_Ken]

Bottom up vs top down

I was lightly involved with some of this NHS stuff a few years ago, doing some promotional work for a specialist healthcare s/w house.

They had some nice products which worked well within a single hospital and did one thing well, and their p-o-v on the NHS computing thing was that it would only ever work that bottom-up way. If you wanted to impose a system (top-down) that did everything, at every hospital and GP surgery in the land it couldn't ever be anything but a dog's dinner, because the NHS is a non-uniform organisation. They even experienced problems trying to put their products into single trusts, because different entities within a single trust did things differently, in a way that worked for them.

Unfortunately we have a govt that is dedicated to the big gesture so everyone (like local NHS IT directors) that was saying "bottom-up" was ignored.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[ShipsDog]

Re: Bottom up vs top down

or £18Bn is 7200 doctors at £100K pa for the next 25 yrs .. might just be money better spent. I was always taught that in a world of finite resources tis better to prioritise appropriately.

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[Peppermint]

Re: Some of them you can

but if it's anything like the fax preference service it's a bit hit and miss.

Actually it doesn't have to be a private phone. Business cold calling is now subject to preference too.

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[Ohdrat]

Re: Bottom up vs top down

V common in my experience.. If you haven't got your Bottom up it generally means everything's Tits Up..

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[pheran]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

I'll not continue this debate as you are clearly out of your depth. Nor will I comment on the NHS project because, like you, all I know about it is what I have read in one or two papers. I would need very much more detail (and time ) before coming to a conclusion on anything as complex.

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=blue>I have a cunning plan, My Lord......................</font color=blue>

 

[AlexL]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

theres no need to get personal. And I've spent the last 12 years working as a design / development engineer for a major blue chip company, so I know the way things work in large organisations, I also know that all engineers (myself at times too) including, but not limited to, IT concentrate on the technology, not the customers required function, and often end up looking for a problem to suit their wonderful solution.
You are correct, I know only what I've read in the papers and seen on the news, but I was merely commenting that 18 billion trips off the tonque fairly readily, but when you think about it, its a very large number, out of all proportion to what is being proposed.
Anyway I'll sign off here as I've got better things to do - including sailing!

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[BrendanS]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

I haven't become involved so far, purely because big IT projects have so many variables

They work sometimes, though only if you have a superb project management team, and a willingness to work out of hours, and if you have the resources to replicate the projected projects on a variety of different systems........been there, done that, but it's hard work.

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[ShipsDog]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

You're a wee bit condescending .. however I would respectably suggest that the only projects that work are those with clearly defined deliverables, clear milestones in clear near timescales .. a blue sky project like the NHS one is doomed to failure...IMHO of course .. oh and a wee course in interpersonal relationships would'nt go amiss!

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[Rob_Webb]

The customer is often NOT right

If Henry Ford had given his customers what they wanted he would have automated the production of the horse and cart.

He gave his customers something they didn't realise they wanted (or could have) until they saw it.

Think about the process of gathering business requirements in the context of that.

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[Ships_Cat]

Re: Your post seems to verge on the libellous

I agree with you Brendan, it certainly is possible and the ones I have managed have all been successful. I do have to say though that I only get involved in projects where the environment (of which attitude is usually the most important) for success exists and one can usually determine that within an initial 30 minute meeting with the client.

Government IT projects (of which I have recovered a few that had been going down the tubes) are generally bad news as the environment in government is generally not conducive to successful projects.

John

<hr width=100% size=1>I am the cat but I am only 6.