A Computer System So Bad It Makes You Want To Cry
from the government-does-it-again dept
Stories about overbudget, overdue, and underperforming IT development/consulting projects are all too common, especially with the government, but this one merits some attention. It seems that some systems designed by EDS and BT Consulting for the U.K.'s Child Support Agency were so rife with problems that it drove employees to intentionally enter wrong data and, even worse, to tears. The CSA spent US$863 million (only $484 million more than planned) for a broken system that was two years late. And it didn't even come with appropriate training: carefully crafted demo disks were substituted for live system use. Of course, horribly designed and implemented IT systems making users cry is nothing new to government agencies. But all the action is in the U.K. these days. The scale of the EDS/BT boondoggle in particular-- both the financial and emotional toll -- ranks up there with the worst of them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
could have had the whole country run like this
[ link to this | view in chronology ]