When the government awards a contract to develop something like the HealthCare.gov website they must follow a code called the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which is more than 1,800 pages of legalese. It all but assures the companies that win the contracts are the ones that can navigate the REGULATIONS the best, NOT the ones who can necessarily do the best job. In other words, the winning companies have the best lawyers, not necessarily the best techies.
Consider this: 94% of Federal information technology projects in the past 10 years have been delayed, over budget, or performed below expectations....41.4% FAILED COMPLETELY!
IMO bureaucrats rarely do anything well, unless you consider writing endless reams of regulations that do little more than give themselves job security. At that they're friggin' World Champions! Nothing that can't be fixed, however. :)
The men are excited about getting to shoot a bureaucrat. You wouldn't happen to be a lawyer, too, would you?
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I will have to give a reprieve, however, to the Justice Department team that nailed JP Morgan Chase with a $13 BILLION settlement relating to their fraudulent mortgage bundling scam. And Chase was told they might still be liable for CRIMINAL prosecution, too. Looks like the pressure being put on the DoJ to not let these formerly "too big to jail" white-collar smug thugs get away with their crime is gaining traction.
Now I understand Bank of America is next in the Fed's gunsight. I'd love to be a fly on the interrogation room wall as the bankers line up to squeal on each other and try to get themselves a deal.
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Looks like a fun weekend ahead: A big Northampton / Saracen rugby match tomorrow am, Texas Tech vs Oklahoma pm, and some sort of food / music / car show event in downtown Plano in between. And maybe some rain over the weekend, too, which would be welcome.
Hope y'all have a fun weekend planned, too. ;)
S
I have to use a bunch of different state and city websites in my job and many of them are just awful in design. It'd be nice if all these people could together sometime and come up with one format that is actually user friendly.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's not just the government too. Windows had to redesign Windows 8 because it bugged people. So in Windows 8.1 they put back the Start button and things like that. That kind of thing happens in video games too, like I own a fair number of NHL games and from one year's game to the next they'll for no good reason delete or modify a feature that was working perfectly fine before. And don't even get me started on Facebook and all its "upgrades" they foist on you with no notice.
The end result is I always end up screaming, "Don't you ever beta test this on REAL people?" I mean people other than programming nerds.
Government seldom does things well. The answer to this problem is simple all you have to do is...ah, I got nothing.
ReplyDeleteCan banks just get back to what banks used to do...lend money responsibly, charge reasonable interest to cover band loans and make a 7% profit, and stop trying to put OUR money at risk.
Just wish they'd get around to Wells Fargo bank.
ReplyDelete41.1% failed completely? I knew they're had been previous problems but that's a terrible record. Still, this should have been expected and dealt with before everything so many people have worked for goes down the drain.
ReplyDeleteI have the same complaint with my company - they roll something new out & I wonder if anyone other than the design team had any input at all. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteOh, and there's another little sporting event also going on this weekend :)
I remember reading that Obama's campaign was very high-tech and slick as far as using all the latest IT technology was concerned. They should have hired the same people for designing the health insurance portal.
ReplyDeleteI expected some glitches to happen, but it was really disappointing to read about all the stuff that went wrong.