<story><title>A billion reasons never to buy IBM services</title><url>https://foliovision.com/2018/03/why-not-buy-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Naga</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a dimension left out here on the Phoenix disaster: It wasn&amp;#x27;t really IBM&amp;#x27;s fault at all.&lt;p&gt;The Canadian public service is really complex. There are multiple unions with multiple overlapping collective bargaining agreements, where the public service is allocated to different classes. These classes are paid specific rates, with retroactive pay being common for changing classes. The majority of the problems with Phoenix have been employees moving from their classes and being paid the correct amount. It has also adversely affected non-unionized positions.&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that the Harper government (Prime Minister until 2015), who was responsible for the negotiation and for laying out the requirements, was trying to save a money and not responibly create a pay system. Two major factors that jump out at me:&lt;p&gt;1) Requirements did not call for training. The system was implemented and IBM was not required to train any operators on how the system functions, which is important because all new staff were hired to run the system and,&lt;p&gt;2) Due to the need for cost saving measures (the government was trying &lt;i&gt;really hard&lt;/i&gt; to balance the budget, as the election was coming up), the previous payroll staff were &lt;i&gt;terminated&lt;/i&gt; and a new payroll centre was opened in Miramichi, which is a small town in the middle of nowhere.&lt;p&gt;So, on top of new software, the government lost all of its institutional knowledge regarding payroll and how things are supposed to work. It&amp;#x27;s actually hard to say how much of this is IBM&amp;#x27;s fault and how much is the governments, because the government &lt;i&gt;doesn&amp;#x27;t know&lt;/i&gt; how to fix it. No one knows how Phoenix works and no one knows how it is supposed to work. It&amp;#x27;s just a big mess with no end in sight.&lt;p&gt;Could IBM have done a better job? Probably, but garbage in, garbage out.&lt;p&gt;For further reading, the Auditor-General&amp;#x27;s report: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.oag-bvg.gc.ca&amp;#x2F;internet&amp;#x2F;English&amp;#x2F;parl_oag_201711_01_e_42666.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.oag-bvg.gc.ca&amp;#x2F;internet&amp;#x2F;English&amp;#x2F;parl_oag_201711_01...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danmaz74</author><text>&amp;gt; There&amp;#x27;s a dimension left out here on the Phoenix disaster: It wasn&amp;#x27;t really IBM&amp;#x27;s fault at all.&lt;p&gt;I respectfully disagree. IBM management either knew what they were contracting was a recipe for disaster, or they were incompetent. In both cases, as they were supposed to be the billion-dollar expert on the matter, they bear great responsibility for this failure.&lt;p&gt;And at an industry level, companies that promise the impossible push out of the market more honest ones, and they deserve all the bad PR IBM is getting on this one.</text></comment>
<story><title>A billion reasons never to buy IBM services</title><url>https://foliovision.com/2018/03/why-not-buy-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Naga</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a dimension left out here on the Phoenix disaster: It wasn&amp;#x27;t really IBM&amp;#x27;s fault at all.&lt;p&gt;The Canadian public service is really complex. There are multiple unions with multiple overlapping collective bargaining agreements, where the public service is allocated to different classes. These classes are paid specific rates, with retroactive pay being common for changing classes. The majority of the problems with Phoenix have been employees moving from their classes and being paid the correct amount. It has also adversely affected non-unionized positions.&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that the Harper government (Prime Minister until 2015), who was responsible for the negotiation and for laying out the requirements, was trying to save a money and not responibly create a pay system. Two major factors that jump out at me:&lt;p&gt;1) Requirements did not call for training. The system was implemented and IBM was not required to train any operators on how the system functions, which is important because all new staff were hired to run the system and,&lt;p&gt;2) Due to the need for cost saving measures (the government was trying &lt;i&gt;really hard&lt;/i&gt; to balance the budget, as the election was coming up), the previous payroll staff were &lt;i&gt;terminated&lt;/i&gt; and a new payroll centre was opened in Miramichi, which is a small town in the middle of nowhere.&lt;p&gt;So, on top of new software, the government lost all of its institutional knowledge regarding payroll and how things are supposed to work. It&amp;#x27;s actually hard to say how much of this is IBM&amp;#x27;s fault and how much is the governments, because the government &lt;i&gt;doesn&amp;#x27;t know&lt;/i&gt; how to fix it. No one knows how Phoenix works and no one knows how it is supposed to work. It&amp;#x27;s just a big mess with no end in sight.&lt;p&gt;Could IBM have done a better job? Probably, but garbage in, garbage out.&lt;p&gt;For further reading, the Auditor-General&amp;#x27;s report: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.oag-bvg.gc.ca&amp;#x2F;internet&amp;#x2F;English&amp;#x2F;parl_oag_201711_01_e_42666.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.oag-bvg.gc.ca&amp;#x2F;internet&amp;#x2F;English&amp;#x2F;parl_oag_201711_01...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GnarfGnarf</author><text>I concur. What I&amp;#x27;m hearing is that the Canadian Federal payroll is extremely complex (like all government payrolls, I suppose). The Harper gov&amp;#x27;t justified the system by laying off everyone who knew the old payroll system.&lt;p&gt;The software developed by IBM was so complex, that it required the expertise of the people who got laid off to operate it. The novices who took over didn&amp;#x27;t know how to make the software work, and chaos ensued.&lt;p&gt;The Canadian government is as much at fault as the developers on this one. (I speak as one who is paying for this fiasco  :o).</text></comment>