It certainly needs a reboot. The written evidence makes a good read - data.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc… ->
... my one major concern is that whilst I can understand criticism of the "tyranny of the agile" which in my view is fair, I still don't believe people understand how important Spend Control is and the necessity of introducing some form of effective challenge into the process.
Spend Control was unfortunately never pushed as far as it could have gone but it helped people to think about user needs, about the components they were building etc.
Also GDS brought transparency and measures to an environment where users were an afterthought to risk aversion via lavish spending on consultants with atrocious delivery.
X : We spent £20M on specification.
Me : What's the user need?
X : Should we write another document?
X : We spent £20M on specification.
Me : What's the user need?
X : Should we write another document?
Duplication, bias (custom building what existed), lack of challenge, transparency, communication, learning and little effective control over spending ... this was Gov IT in 2009.
Oh, and as for "Technology solutions were developed without understanding the problem" ... well, that's still an improvement over fitting the problem to the chosen vendor / technology. The bad old days of Gov paying vendors to write their specification for them.
There is nothing like sitting in a room with Gov "project managers" (PMs) presenting a specification (written by a consortium of vendors paid for by Gov) for a solution (to be sold to Gov by the consortium) and when challenged on the user need to have PMs refer to the consortium.
... it's only topped by being told by one of the PMs that they don't do technology and all the internal engineering talent of the Dept has been outsourced.
To give you an idea of scale, if memory serves me correctly then one of the early "projects" went from around £60M to £800k with just a little bit of challenge. So, I understand criticism of GDS. I do the same. But, wow ... you should have seen Gov IT before GDS.
If anything GDS has forced depts to up their game and put some expertise in the room with the consultants. Spend control has introduced some mechanisms of challenge. Of course, there's lots to criticise, it could be better ... but it's a far cry from Gov IT before GDS.
Still, with Amazon ripping up the revenue streams of former IT giants then I'm sure we're going to see a lot more of this as those former giants look for some victim to feed off. What we really need is for Amazon to start providing Gov services.
In the meantime, I'm sure there'll be some lobbying for letting the good times roll again in Gov IT - the outsource contracts, 15 year deals and unchallenged IT projects. Back to those days where no-one could work out Gov IT spending to the nearest £1Bn. Trebles all round.
If you want my version of "reboot" ... then I would double down on spend control. Ramp it up, all projects to go through spend control, no exceptions and make sure you use maps.
X : Gov IT wasn't that bad, Blair did a ...
Me : Stop. Prior to GDS / Spend Control, it was a shambles. There were reasons why @liammax used to add stickers to the back of phones. Basic questions weren't being asked. There was no challenge just fiefdoms.
Me : Stop. Prior to GDS / Spend Control, it was a shambles. There were reasons why @liammax used to add stickers to the back of phones. Basic questions weren't being asked. There was no challenge just fiefdoms.
... there was a real belief in some groups that you could outsource all the engineering capability and that all you needed was good project management and better specification. The IT estate was mostly a mess of duplication and bias and getting worse.
So whilst I accept @GDSTeam was not perfect and made mistakes at points, it enabled a vast improvement over what existed before. The four huge pivotal errors IMHO were
a) exceptions to spend control
b) the tyranny of the agile
c) loss of Francis Maude
d) too much jam for big IT
a) exceptions to spend control
b) the tyranny of the agile
c) loss of Francis Maude
d) too much jam for big IT
So by all means "reboot". But as I've said, the reboot you want is to double down, to add renewed vigour and to really push on spend control. Try not to slip back into the rose tinted Garden of Eden that was the past ... it wasn't.
X : You feel quite strongly about this!
Me : I just want to avoid having to write another "Better for Less" paper in a decade and going through the whole malarky of trying to shift the pendulum again. Just reinforce spend control and the rest will sort itself out.
Me : I just want to avoid having to write another "Better for Less" paper in a decade and going through the whole malarky of trying to shift the pendulum again. Just reinforce spend control and the rest will sort itself out.
X : This is just an IBM shill advocating for HMG to revert to handing out contracts to the big system integrators.
Me : Someone has to pay the $34Bn bill and the future says "no". I suspect we will see quite a few past giants leeching on existing clients rather than adapting.
Me : Someone has to pay the $34Bn bill and the future says "no". I suspect we will see quite a few past giants leeching on existing clients rather than adapting.
