Re: So what is the right answer?
>> What we found when trying to scale, to departments doing the same in other authorities, or other departments within the same authority, is that not only are all authorities actually in competition with each other, but all departments within an authority are in competition
They're in competition for budget, mainly, but councils tend to attract people who want to build kingdoms. The type of problems you see in all public sector IT projects are almost always down to the pettiness of the people they're being developed for, but also...
>> they are all little fiefdoms with their own set of legacy processes and requirements and external software to integrate with that they don't want to change because they are the 'best practice' and everyone else's way is wrong.
What they mean when they say this is really that they've learned a way to do it and they don't want to have to relearn how to do their jobs. I sympathise with this enormously. Nobody wants to have to be retrained to do admin; after we've been doing it for a while we've learned exactly how much of it is essential and how much can be ignored. With a new system you have to start again. That's why people want a system that works exactly like the old one, and why you get so many late requirements when people realise they can't use all their old dodges to avoid the drudgery.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
