Agile Experts
Also known in these parts as "Make-it-up-as-they-go-along shysters"
Hundreds of millions 'wasted' on UK court digitisation scheme
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on plans to digitise the criminal justice system due to the mismanagement of a key programme that has so far delivered little value to the taxpayer, according to multiple insiders. The Common Platform Programme (CPP) was supposed to be complete by March 2019. However, a …
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Monday 3rd April 2017 17:18 GMT Steve Davies 3
Re: Agile Experts
Snake Oil Salesmen promoting something that is clearly FRAGILE
Then they come to the "Roundabout"
where they debate about "Five Percent of Nothing"
before going on a "Long distance Runaround"
And there is all ends with nothing delivered as all those involved get burned in the "Heart of the Sunrise"
You have to be of a certain age to get that.
Mines the one with a set of well thumbed "Yes" lyrics in the pocket.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 12:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Agile Experts
The problem is that if you have no idea what you're actually buying (due to this damn political fetish for "new" and "hip" technology instead of something that has a solid and robust track record), you are likely to end up with Agile Excuses instead - all, of course, at the taxpayer's expense, because that is the one cert in all of this: someone is raking it in regardless, without a worry in the world about any consequences.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 11:29 GMT alain williams
Agile is OK for ...
* small projects that are easy enough for people to fit all the components into their heads at once.
* prototyping/mock-ups.
Anything seriously big needs proper design, otherwise the obvious things are done and the corner cases forgotten and the various pieces don't quite fit well with remote components.
The other thing about this project is that it will result in UK government outsourcing a lot of work to call centers, etc, India at a loss of UK jobs and skills - it might save MoJ some money but will end up costing the treasury many times more: less tax receipts and more dole money.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 12:31 GMT Vic
Re: Agile is OK for ...
This is a common misconception - agile doesn't mean "no design" or "no planning", you should be doing that regardless of the size of your project.
This. A thousand times, this.
The trouble, I reckon, is that people fail to read sufficiently accurately; the Agile Manifesto says:
we have come to value ... Working software over comprehensive documentation
That's an entirely reasonable position, IMO - it is better to ship something that works and is not fully documented than to ship something with plenty of documentation that doesn't work. But countless groups have decided to interpret the above as "we don't need no steenking documentation", and have included all facets of project planning in the above.
Vic.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 13:11 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: "we have come to value ... Working software over comprehensive documentation"
Seems that, at this point in time, the UK Courts have neither.
Personally I think Agile or Waterfall make no difference if the project is not clearly defined and the steps to realizing said project not perfectly understood by everyone, from top managers to the underpaid code monkeys that hammer their keyboards.
It's time to stop thinking that we can implement country-wide IT projects without a year or two of high-level, expert study and preparation, followed by ruthless implementation of said project.
I'll always remember the best project manager I ever met - it was in an industrial tire-making plant. When we went to progress meetings, there was an agenda he had sent to the participants. Anything outside the agenda was mercilessly swatted aside with an imperious remark to the effect that that was not on the agenda. Any suggestion for additional functionality or unplanned functionality improvement was automatically put on the list for v1.1. And nobody dared complain.
End result ? Project delivered on spec, on cost and on time, with discussions for that famous v1.1 to happen later.
Greatest project I ever worked on.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 13:31 GMT Allonymous Coward
Re: "we have come to value ... Working software over comprehensive documentation"
This, 1000x this.
I work in public sector "digital" and it's a constant source of dismay how many projects try to disguise a lack of getting the fundamentals right (be that understanding requirements, senior-level buy-in, having a PM who understands what they're doing, whatever) behind the veneer of "Agile".
The reason these projects fail often has little to do with the methodology they employ, and a lot more to do with the people involved.
It's nothing new - ten years ago everyone in the public sector blindly applied PRINCE2 and hoped for good outcomes as well.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 13:55 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: "we have come to value ... Working software over comprehensive documentation"
"Anything outside the agenda was mercilessly swatted aside with an imperious remark to the effect that that was not on the agenda."
I take it that if the plant caught fire during a meeting the fire alarm would have been ignored because it wasn't on the agenda.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 22:32 GMT veti
Re: Silly
True, but most things called "agile" depend more on user engagement.
Seems to me that, instead of overselling the product, which is what normally happens with government IT projects, here what's been oversold is the methodology. Somebody heard about "agile", went and read a book about "scrum" and assumed it was the same thing. Someone else - didn't. So as well as "no agreed product plan", there's also "no meeting of minds on project plan".
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Monday 3rd April 2017 11:31 GMT amanfromMars 1
Ooops?
The Common Platform Programme (CPP) was supposed to be complete by March 2019 at a total cost of £350m. However, a spokeswoman from HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) said the programme will not be complete until 2020 at a revised cost of £270m.
Hi, Kat Hall/El Reg,
??? Does that paragraph need revision and rewriting...... for it does not support the report headline ...Hundreds of millions 'wasted' on UK court digitisation scheme
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Tuesday 4th April 2017 04:25 GMT amanfromMars 1
Re: Ooops and Scoops/Stop Press News and Faked Views
I see it's been revised now - by taking out the initial figure.
So it still doesn't support the headline, but at least it doesn't actively contradict it any more...... veti
Hmmm? If/When the correct initial figure is £35m (rather than a typo £350m) is the undisputed £270m a disgraceful abuse and scandalous misuse of privilege and quite PAR for the course of serially inept and conveniently exempt from punitive accountability, exclusive executive office. A sad and sorry perverse and naturally corrupting state for both national and international, and virtually internetional affairs, and then is the headline more than just accurate and supportive.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 16:55 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Re: Nobody knows exactly who built Stonehenge, or why
New research suggests Stonehenge was (ancient) Britain's first multi-role combat aircraft project.
Of course as requirements changed and the technology under-delivered on promised performance
some aspects of the aircraft role were reduced in line with expected outcomes.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 12:30 GMT BebopWeBop
In a boiler plate response, an HMCTS spokeswoman said: "The Common Platform Programme is a partnership between HMCTS, the Crown Prosecution Service and police and has strong support from the judiciary.
"It provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design and build a fully connected criminal courtroom by 2020.
As so frequently the case, laudable aims. As frequently the case a shame no one had the nouse to plan it properly. Without any attempt to to do any sort of rapid prototyping either (with there intention of throwing away the prototypes rather than incorporating them into the end design, I would be prepared to bet that the requirements developed over 18 months(!) will be a long way from optimal, and when the have to be redeveloped will further add to cost and delay.
It reminds me about talking with some of the people tasked with speccing and delivering part of the crashed & burnt NHS system. I was flabbergasted to discover that at this point they had not even discussed them with the medical staff who were due to use the damn thing. "we wanted to get it right before we showed them". Honest not making it up.
The management consultants responsible (I have no reason too suppose they were lying) know who they are - as do most of the readers of this piece.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 12:39 GMT Kubla Cant
a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to modernise the criminal justice system
This point of view seems to embody the characteristic failure mode of these monster public-sector projects. Instead of building on what's already in place, they have a megalomaniac urge to throw everything away and start again.
My experience (admittedly on a relatively microscopic scale) is that this attitude is common among people who lack the patience, or the ability, to examine the existing solutions properly.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 13:19 GMT MSmith
Have any Government IT Projects in Britain worked?
As a US reader, I am left wondering if any Government IT project in the UK has ever worked. I am continually astonished at the vast amounts of money used to build a database, since most of these projects are to build a database. With what they need, wouldn't a simple database containing the case info (names, charges, judge, attorneys) that links to a moodle course with all the information be sufficient? Moodle is open-source, free, robust, and can store and display all the types of files (and more) needed.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 14:06 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: Have any Government IT Projects in Britain worked?
"As a US reader, I am left wondering if any Government IT project in the UK has ever worked."
There are projects that have worked. However they're not as newsworthy as those that fail so you don't hear about them. That's a pity on several levels. One advantage of publicising them would be to let it be known in the public sector that failure shouldn't be regarded as an expected outcome. Another would be to have exemplars of how to do things right.
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Friday 14th April 2017 14:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Have any Government IT Projects in Britain worked?
The UK-Gov approach is one (like many other governments) of Babble and Dabble.
The main supplier is usually mr. Rubble and the main promotions, bonusses usually go to the lawyers and managers who have been liberated of having to produce something on-time that actually works, by automating concepts like "flexibility" "agility" and replacing "specifications" and "designs" with those.
If we compare IT to regular construction it is probably akin to making construction more agile by denying the need for separate electricians, gas-fitters, but instead divide "technicians" into small groups where they will informally receive "wishes" and immediately set about making them. Since this method is bound to be cheaper and better than working with designs, the scope can easily be up-scaled to maximize the output.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 14:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Agile was supposed to fix the problems of vast specs that didn't respond to change very well.
The thing is, the problem wasn't really the system, it's the people on the whole.
Divas. BOFHs. Lazy gits. Incompetent PMs. Clueless bosses. Those are the real problems.
Moving all that crap to Agile doesn't fix it, it just makes it more self-contained.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 14:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Introduction to CJS Common Platform Programme
'We’ve developed the video (below) that outlines how the CJS Common Platform Programme is designing and delivering a shared process to transform the way practitioners in the criminal justice system work'.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 15:52 GMT teebie
"an identity access management system to allow professionals to log on and view cases remotely, has yet to be delivered despite £40m having been spent on it."
How? Is it being delivered by someone who sent them an unsolicited email. "I would be happy to provide your idenitity management system, for just £10,000" "sadly your transfer failed" "a local tax change means I need 25,000" ... ... "gangsters" ... ... "wombats" ... ... "nearly there, I just need another 5 million, then I will be able to provide the system and marry you
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Monday 3rd April 2017 16:08 GMT A Long Fellow
Longfellow's law of large projects
The larger the budget for a project the greater the odds that it will be both disproportionately late and disproportionately over budget.
The reasons why are both clear and inevitable: too many people in the food chain with a vested interest in keeping the taps open, and therefore not enough odds that any heads will roll for repeated failures to deliver.
Anybody describing these projects as "agile" either hasn't got a clue about agile in the first place or is too busy cashing checques to care. How else to you spend £270m on a web-enabled database that could reliably run on just enough hardware to fit into a closet?
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Monday 3rd April 2017 18:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
How many IT projects actually get delivered on time and within budget both private and public. Over 70 percent of all IT projects fail to deliver on time. If you have ever worked in IT then you would understand the complexities and troubles you can run into.
If they don't deliver by 2020 then I would understand the uproar, but an IT project that is still currently in progress and has a revised deadline is hardly surprising or rare.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 19:14 GMT JamesBrown
Firstly I'm a bit confused by the below paragraph......
"The Common Platform Programme (CPP) was supposed to be complete by March 2019 at a total cost of £350m. However, a spokeswoman for HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) said the program will not be complete until 2020 at a revised cost of £270m."
Secondly, the introduction of agile was a reaction to the failures of the Waterfall methodology to deliver within budget and on time.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 20:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
you are right
with the statement
[Secondly, the introduction of agile was a reaction to the failures of the Waterfall methodology to deliver within budget and on time.]
however, the ability of projects to fail to identify stakeholders, existing solutions, people that actually know what they are talking about, or are capable either mentally or organisationally of making decisions will never be removed by ANY methodology.
All you get are PM's attempting to show progress at any cost, account managers making sure everyone stays billable, and an assistant producing status reports with cleverly agreed metrics to ensure they are always green.
note to senior management (probably everywhere) it does not matter how brilliant the sales pitch from the vendor is - they will never know your organisation or requirements and are there only to take money. They are not there to, or indeed capable of, reinventing your organisation single handed no matter how many dollars you toss at them. You fail to control them with people that know what good looks like at your peril.
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Monday 3rd April 2017 22:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
"plenty of high paid lawyers, hardware-vendors, software vendors, subject-matter experts and now nobody got all the details nailed down?"
How many MPs are involved - in a meaningful, accountable way, in how this sort of money is spent? Surely anything over a certain value should go in front of Parliament?
Good job their track record on delivery is so wonderful though, otherwise I'd be concerned about the rumours around a £500m new passport
wastescheme.
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Tuesday 4th April 2017 01:19 GMT SeanC4S
I once encountered a company trying to deliver internet services with no research and development department to test the hardware they were buying and check that they could integrate the hardware into a working system. The management obviously had no clue about engineering and of course it didn't work out. Dark fiber that will never be lit, millions of euros down the drain etc.
I don't know how you could deliver a large software project without a R&D center to design (in outline), specify and verify software components written by external contractors. Smooth talking middle class shysters can get away with anything though, while a 50 year old with arthritis who is unable to make it to the job center on a particular day is sanctioned, left without food for the week and faces eviction.
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Tuesday 4th April 2017 07:33 GMT JoKing
Incompetence personified
This programme was failed from the outset. You don't head out to sea with a captain at the helm whose only qualification is that she is a senior civil servant. Then there's a belief you can just work out where you are going at some point in the future - you don't need a plan... full steam ahead! The CJS CP is testimony to flawed ideology from the Cabinet Office who push agile at the expense of common sense - overwhelming naivety and zero accountability. It is also a reflection of senior leaders who have acted as guilty bystanders just watching it fail. The beneficiaries are the contractors and consultancies who just keep taking the paychech until someone says stop. Will Actica get blacklisted for failure? Will Jeremy Renner be allowed to keep peddling the agile coach nonsense and selling his company into the programme - probably. The hapless captain should admit she's lost at sea or the admiralty should scuttle the ship. Roll on the PAC!
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Tuesday 4th April 2017 08:14 GMT PaulAb
I don't feel well......
Doesn't this sound like the NHS IT fiasco 7 years of golden goodbyes to clever suppliers who managed to get payouts on failure and then the system almost managed to keep a single ante-natal clinic up for one morning. I expect the same suspects are involved in this one ....and so it goes on, the Clever leading the incompetant
Goodbye Billionsssssssssssss!
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Friday 7th April 2017 19:19 GMT enormous c word
The same old story:
[XXXX_Govt_Dept] embarks upon project XXXX to completely re-work the XXXX at a cost of £XXXX [...] XXX years late £XXXX over budget with nothing whatsoever to show for it....
It's a boiler-plate spend-and-waste story, can anyone name 1 massive govt IT innovation that actually spawned a positive result?
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Monday 19th June 2023 14:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
I think it is short sighted to place blanket blame on Agile, the use of contractors or not using off-the-shelf-software.
There are many good examples of Agile working very well in managing Government projects, and very good reason why it is the gold standard in project management across digital in both the public and private sectors. Problems arise when projects are poorly run, deliverables and roadmaps are poorly written and there is, as I have seen working in the public sector, sometimes pressure to implement a sort of half agile, half waterfall way of working because the business and delivery teams have very different approaches and priorities.
Often the reason we don't use off the shelf solutions is because there isn't one. Or there isn't suitable ones. I have worked for a decade on digital projects in Gov, and I can say that more than a few times we've been designing new services because the off the shelf product that's currently being used isn't fit for purpose. Problems are more often than not quite unique to the makeup of particular government departments and the interaction of different parties, not to mention the need for accessibility and good design meeting the GDS Service Standard. This requires custom solutions. These are also often cheaper than paying for ongoing support and contracts to maintain off the shelf solutions.
In projects I have come across in my work where users interact with the Common Platform, it seems to me that one big piece of the picture missing in how it was made is that there was a lack of good user centred design that properly understands the problem it's trying to solve, and there has been a lack of iterative design and testing. Of course that's not the whole picture, but I hasten a guess that it's a bit part of it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
