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2005-01-13 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by Seafarious 2005-01-13 10:19:25 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Is this Virtual Case File as opposed to Real Case File. Fund the Virtual Case File with Virtual Money.

Posted by John Q. Citizen 2005-01-13 10:45:03 AM|| 2005-01-13 10:45:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Sigh. Not enough specifics offered to comment in hard detail. Once again, however, it can be said that common sense was not common enough. It's easy to blame SAIC, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that they delivered precisely what was requested per the specs. This sort of thing always amazes me as I've been in some pretty massive projects, literally terabytes of data and upwards of a million lines of code in some of them, and I've never seen a project fail.

The problem is the mooks at the FBI. Since the article sez Zalmai Azmi has been the CIO for a year, he apparently inherited this mess, although a goddamned year is a long time and he sure as hell should've known this was a dead duck long before this initial delivery. I would be asking if he's the right guy - he let this drag on and waste a year, whether the money could've been saved or not - the time sure could have.

Unphreakingbelievable. One thing is certain, they will never talk to real programmers and DB wizards about what they should do, they'll talk to titled management twits and salesmen who will spew a lot of puffy airy bloviating blather. And probably repeat much of the stupidity on the next pass.

Posted by .com 2005-01-13 11:26:23 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:26:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 They could give me lots of money and I'd be happy to write them a case management system. That's kinda what I do, when I'm not doing Rantburg...

Posted by Fred 2005-01-13 11:38:00 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:38:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 The key to what happened is the clause, "Congress has given the FBI a blank check". This assures that money will be spent ad infinitum without result.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-13 11:40:15 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:40:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Heck, Rantburg is a virtual case mangement system. We're already hosting the Bangla police blotter, and the VirginDelegator v3.1 seems to be working just fine. As soon as Fred can get the Surprise and Sympathy meters functional, we should be good to go. Congress can direct deposit my checks.

Posted by Seafarious 2005-01-13 11:48:09 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:48:09 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Been-there/done-that on a large corporate project. Middle management sold upper management a bill of goods before we "hands on" types were asked to get involved. Then, after we condemned it, there were months of middle management posturing to save face when it became apparent that the contractor couldn't walk on water and turn water into wine. All was ultimately blamed on the contractor. The truth is that all the middle management and all the contractor sales staff involved should have been fired. It was like the U.N. -- lots of meaningless speeches followed by elegant dining followed by minimal accomplishment. Rinse. Repeat.

Posted by Tom 2005-01-13 11:54:46 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:54:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 A Wiki would work just fine....
Most are free and down-loadable with source code included...

Posted by 3dc 2005-01-13 11:59:40 AM|| 2005-01-13 11:59:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 He-who-should-not-be-named working for the FBI. I guess it's better than OBL.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-13 12:01:05 PM|| 2005-01-13 12:01:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 No surprises here. All working large, complicated systems are grown from smaller working systems. Another sad example of this truth is the failed attempt to re-implement the federal air traffic control system in one fell swoop.

As for the suggestion about using a wiki, that would be a damn decent start.

Posted by SteveS 2005-01-13 12:30:39 PM|| 2005-01-13 12:30:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 it has taken steps to begin soliciting proposals from outside contractors for new software

Smells like another "We can write our own program in-house, we don't need to buy one off the shelf" government software fiasco. Been there, done that, warned them of failure, watched it crash and burn.

Posted by Steve 2005-01-13 1:50:55 PM|| 2005-01-13 1:50:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Two words: Database and scripting.

:o)

Posted by badanov 2005-01-13 2:07:00 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2005-01-13 2:07:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Oopsies...

Two words: Database and scripting.

:o)

Posted by badanov 2005-01-13 2:08:22 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2005-01-13 2:08:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 May I suggest.....Pick up an old Cray case...dust it off...place brand new squirrel cage w/ 2 frisky M-F squirrels....add heater & fan...then stop and search all Muslim folks coming into our country.

Posted by Rubin 2005-01-13 2:15:48 PM|| 2005-01-13 2:15:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Sounds about right. But also put a bunch of important-looking blinky lights on the control panel to make it look like it's doing something...

Posted by Seafarious 2005-01-13 2:18:59 PM|| 2005-01-13 2:18:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Tom, sounds like you're channeling Dilbert.

Posted by RWV 2005-01-13 3:06:00 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:06:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 FUBAR Clusterf**k. Golden fleece award winner.

Posted by John Q. Citizen 2005-01-13 3:14:54 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:14:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 It's easy to blame SAIC, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that they delivered precisely what was requested per the specs.

Sounds about right -- and the specs were no doubt written by people who don't use the software, would never use the software, but who are "experts" at padding requirements.

A Wikki WOULD be the best place to start. Sadly, it would never happen.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-01-13 3:17:04 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-01-13 3:17:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Toms points are well and good, but SAIC is one of the premier systems integrators in the country, they should KNOW about all that to begin with and be on the look out. This was a 170 million dollar contract - the Project Manager for SAIC had to be somebody reasonably senior, who should have been on the lookout for this. You hire a firm like that to MANAGE the project, not just to write code.

Nah, I think SAIC does NOT emerge from this smelling like a rose.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2005-01-13 3:17:29 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:17:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 This is classic. How many times do we have to reinvent the wheel? Main problem...too much money thrown at it, What Tom says certainly sounds like the scenario. 90% of all bugs are eliminated during review and inspection IF the necessary people are on board. What happened here is the software industry in a nutshell. This crap just fries me.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2005-01-13 4:25:08 PM|| 2005-01-13 4:25:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 What's really, REALLY bad is that SAIC has TWO major database projects it "manages" that are working just peachy-keen. One of them provides theater intelligence information on demand, including everything the FBI file would require. A few simple changes, and voila! Ten to one the FBI didn't know what it wanted, still doesn't know what they want, and have no idea how to get what they want. Some people have absolutely no ability to convert "needs" into "can do". I used to scare the s$$$ out of my last boss by giving him the answer to a "tough" question in less than a minute, after he'd failed to figure it out over several months. He could write code beautifully, but had no three-dimensional thinking ability at all.

Posted by Old Patriot 2005-01-13 6:14:30 PM|| [http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2005-01-13 6:14:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 The FBI during the Louis Freeh (sp) did not embrace computers. It will take awhile to get up on the learning curve for this institution.

Posted by John Q. Citizen 2005-01-13 8:49:10 PM|| 2005-01-13 8:49:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 "Tom, sounds like you're channeling Dilbert."
Felt like it at the time, too.

"Toms points are well and good, but SAIC is one of the premier systems integrators in the country, they should KNOW about all that to begin with and be on the look out."
The contractor I referred to is a big name too. Believe me, big firms can botch up big projects. In my case, they were overreaching the state of the art and underestimating the complexity of the task -- because none of the sales people or the client middle managers actually had experience with the task. So they were working with an IT manager's concept of how to design, build, and operate a sophisticated chemical plant. Clueless.

This also reminds me of the hospital that suddenly started billing me as if I had no referrals. It turned out that they had just installed a new billing system that was unable to include referral numbers on the bills to the insurance companies. It took them months to straighten out thousands of accounts. Again, both the software writers and the client IT manager were clueless in regard to the basics of the task.

Posted by Tom 2005-01-13 9:47:47 PM|| 2005-01-13 9:47:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 What you've described, Tom, is the most fundamental, yet classic, mistake in software design. There are 2 things you have to know, and I mean know inside out - wearing the user's shoes:

1) What do they do now. Look over their shoulders ask questions. Live with the end users for some period of time so you really "get it". You have to know how they work.

2) What do they want it to do? What are the differences between now and that desired end? Is the information they want out actually in the input? If not, can it be inferred or calculated? How should it be presented so that it's useful?

The only people you should have to be pleasing are the actual end users. They know what you need to know. If management presents you with a design that didn't come from them, it's a dead duck out of the box. Screw management, talk to the end users and then follow up with the raw input. What you do in the middle, storage, keying, maintaining raw and massaged data - that's the textbook / cookbook shit that anyone can do. Picking off the right input and presenting the output in a useful form are the real challenges. And nothing beats that first week looking over their shoulders and asking them what's right, what's wrong, what's demanded of them by management, how could it be better, what would the ideal system do, etc.

If you can't get to the end users so you can do it right, walk away - the project will fail and your reputation will be shot. Never accept anyone's word about the system without getting confirmation from the little users. Their asses are on the line everyday - they know their shit. Management's usually so full of shit they can't see straight, except where they can polish up their resumes.

Posted by .com 2005-01-13 11:46:25 PM|| 2005-01-13 11:46:25 PM|| Front Page Top

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