Australia bins $41m app contracted to Accenture

Australia's government has scrapped an app that had been intended to replace paperwork for incoming visitors to the country. Commissioned last year with a AU$60 million ($41m) budget, the software developed by Accenture worked, but was notoriously difficult to use. Worse still, passengers were still required to complete a …

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia bins?

From the Minister's comments, it appears the headline should have been "Australia to throw more money at Accenture to fix their app". Her comments talk about putting the app, which works but is impossible to use, on hold while the UI is improved, presumably by Accenture.

They may rationalize it as 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' but from past experience I see it as 'throwing good money after bad'.

[Mayday]

Accenture

I think that we (Aussie citizens, and citizens of other countries too Im sure) already give too much money to Accenture and their ilk.

[SnOOpy168]

SG Arrival Card (SGAC) with Electronic Health Declaration

Hey Australia.

Singapore has a visitor arrival e-card

https://www.ica.gov.sg/enter-depart/entry_requirements/sg-arrival-card

Perhaps you can study this and modify the workflow to suit your need. The code is already there, just a matter of inter-government cooperation and sharing.

[eldakka]

Australia bins $41m app contracted to Accenture

As is the fate of every Accenture app.

[Def]

How the fuck...

...can you justify asking for $41m to develop an app in the first place?

Serious question.

Officially I've been a software engineer for the last 30 years, and an unofficial dabbler of programming for 10 years prior to that when I was a kid. I know how software is put together. I know what resources it will take to develop something. I understand the requirements for server hosting and management of those systems. What I don't understand is how can people pull clearly bullshit numbers like this out of their gargantuan arses and keep a straight face.

[Anonymous Coward]

Accenture formerly Arthur Anderson’s

Politicians should not be anywhere near IT systems.

They don’t have a f in clue.

The big consultancies run rings round them and probably went to the same prep school.

ALL IT projects should be done via a tendering process that includes the countries Computer Science organisation.

The tenders should then be put into the public domain without pricing and let the EXPERTS rip them apart.

I was in a meeting where the supplier wanted an additional £30k to build the DELETE function for an order, did not go down well when I mentioned that a cascading delete trigger and a button on the UI was all that was really needed and could be completed within 2 days fully tested.

[AMBxx]

Re: Accenture formerly Arthur Anderson’s

Not defending the quote from Accenture, but deleting an order like that is a really bad idea. Much better to have a 'soft delete' so that there's an easy audit trail. Probably easier to implement than your cacading delete, so won't have been recommended by Accenture either!