alistair@mits.com.au (04/23/91)
In Brad Cox's "Object Oriented Programming" (ISBN 0-201-10393-1) on
page 4 he shows a pie chart indicating software costs versus results.
Unfortunately the data is now over 10 years old. Does anyone have a
newer version (not necessarily government data)? For those
interested, the caption is :-
"The U.S. Government Accounting Office 1979 report (FGMSD-80-4)
describes this breakdown of results from $6.8 million in nine federal
software projects: 47% ($3.2M) were paid for but never delivered, 29%
($2.0M) were delivered but never used, 19% ($1.3M) were abandoned or
re-worked, 3% (%0.2M) were used after change, and only <2% ($0.1M)
were used as delivered."
Thanks in advance,
Alistair Grant
Internet: alistair@mits.com.au PSI Mail: psi%0505238730004::alistair
Alternate: alistair%mits.com.au@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au
grant@decus.com.au
Phone: +61 3 613 9005 Fax: +61 3 613 9500dlw@odi.com (Dan Weinreb) (04/28/91)
In article <1991Apr22.191804.3454@mits.com.au> alistair@mits.com.au writes:
U.S. Government Accounting Office 1979 report (FGMSD-80-4)
describes this breakdown of results from $6.8 million in nine federal
software projects: 47% ($3.2M) were paid for but never delivered, 29%
($2.0M) were delivered but never used, 19% ($1.3M) were abandoned or
re-worked, 3% (%0.2M) were used after change, and only <2% ($0.1M)
were used as delivered."
Please note that "federal" software projects are not typical of
private-sector software projects. The more you learn about how
procurement and contracting work in the Federal Government, the less
surprising figures like the above seem. Some of this kind of thing is
actually intentional (two companies are given the same task, and only
the "winner" is chosen, the results of the other being discarded),
some due to process inefficiency (work is done as part of a greater
project, that is later cancelled when Congress changes its
priorities), some is inefficiency, probably a bit is out-and-out
fraud, perhaps some is pork-barrel, and so on. If we looked
at Federal military procurement as a whole, I wonder how different
it would be?