Computer Weekly readers give their views on the week's
news
Make high risk projects a thing of the past
Christopher Thoday, software engineer
With regard to your story
NAO highlights perils facing key IT
projects, there should be no high-risk projects. How can
anyone determine whether a project will be cost-effective if the
risks are not under control?
According to a National Audit Office report, the government paid
three times the going rate for the replacement system for the Child
Support Agency, yet it has been scrapped with half the £1.1bn cost
yet to be paid.
Ten years ago the book "Software Failure, Management Failure"
detailed a number of critical failure factors related to IT
projects, yet the problems continue unabated.
A classic cause of failure is for management to stick to an
implementation timetable regardless of the state of the
software.
There is no time to carry out integration tests, so a faulty
system is put into use regardless. The problems are compounded if
the new and supposedly more efficient system coincides with
redundancies.
A recent case of this was the Single Farm Payments scheme. Those
working on the software knew that it is going wrong, but the
management were so committed to the success of the project that
they could not be told.
While poor management is part of the problem, it is not the
whole answer. The software engineering aspects are equally
important, but are not properly addressed by the NAO.
Unsatisfactory project definition and incompetent systems design is
often compounded by continual changes to the requirements.
I believe that the government needs a chief software engineer to
provide a quality control procedure and independent technical
advice.
There is no justification for the government to hide behind
"commercial confidentiality" and no public benefit in so doing. An
open and continuous process of review is an essential software
engineering technique.
In view of the many billions of pounds wasted and the damage to
many people's lives, it is high time that the MPs take seriously
their role of holding the government to account.
Need for more courses for young people is
urgent
Duncan Mossop
I completeley agree with the points made in your story
IT skills crisis will damage UK economy, says
Shadbolt The lack of IT training for young people is
unreal. The only course offered by my local college is a BTEC
National diploma which does not cover the right subjects for my
interests.
But university degrees cost money, as do courses through private
training companies. There is a need for a really good course for
students aged 16-18, which I feel is the foundation age for
developing a career and making choices.
My freelance web design portfolio got me a job to use as a
foothold into the industry. I am also setting up an IT resource
website for all ages and all IT backgrounds. I want future
generations to be better equipped with knowledge. It is still small
and needs support and community input but here it is.
www.theitresource.net
We must stop pandering to the NPfIT cash
cow
Richard Barker, Sovereign Business Integration
The
missed NHS IT deadline has come as no
surprise to those in the IT sector. The NPfIT will never get
back on track, and was never on track originally. It breaks
every rule of project management, from scoping right through to
delivery, and is completely failing to address the requirements
of NHS clinicians.
The project management team has approached the matter as if they
are dealing with a nation of identikits, not individual
idiosyncratic patients. No right-thinking manager would attempt to
deploy systems on a national basis like this - it makes no sense
and simply cannot be achieved.
Over £20bn of taxpayers' money has been wasted on a system that
was destined to fail. The concept is undoubtedly laudable, but it
has been approached from the wrong angle from the outset. Smaller
software companies already serving the NHS were not permitted to
tender for NPfIT contracts, and those that were awarded them had no
healthcare experience.
In the event, the larger IT firms actually outsourced to the
very companies who had been refused contracts. Further, integrating
all the regional systems that were created to comprise the final
NPfIT was always going to be an uphill struggle to say the
least.
The NPfIT is five years overdue - how many more casualties are
going to be caused by IT industry fat cats pandering to the cash
cow the NPfIT has become?
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