A good read on Government Self Harm...

[squarepeg]

I had a couple of interviews with a 'government organisation' two years ago and I have decided not to bother again. The room where programmers sat was so cramped they were coding elbow to elbow and the guy who interviewed me during second stage kept interrupting me all the time and then told me "sadly, we've run out of time".

[bobspud]

GDS are still a fledgling organisation and incredibly young and passionate in their demographic. They do come over as a bit like Norman Tebbit when they arrive to disrupt projects and that's not all bad.

However I do think they are a little too web focused and the next stages of transition will need a lot of different skillsets many of which will start to temper the agile fixes everything mentally that annoys the crap out of every other department they meet...

So ironically I find myself saying long live GDS may they continue to give bad suppliers wedgies for many more years

[eek]

There is also a large arrogance around these people which is rather misplaced in my view.

A lot of management seems to like arrogance in their management / suppliers until they are found out. I've also found that they will always eventually be found out

[eek]

I think you might know about 900 contractors getting the boot. Thats just crap being spouted by an agent that wants to install a lower rate expectation. Also my experience of projects getting canned is the name gets changed and a new stealth mode kicks in followed by a rebranding and final delivery. there are grave problems with projects getting canned thats why it hardly ever happens.

Dwp have dumped an awful lot of people - I don't know exact numbers but every contractor I knew was at dwp is not there now. Can't give you exact numbers but either my former colleagues are very unlucky or it's an awful lot

[original PM]

GDS was a slow motion train wreck from the moment it was created. They waded in trying to tell everyone else how to work with the worst "Agile will fix it" mentality, were run on a jobs for boys basis and failed to deliver anything beyond a few re-skinned web sites that ended up being worse than the originals.

The fact that the knives are out now is hardly surprising.

Yeah we are working with a load of people who worked on this.

It is true that Agile works well for system designed for the user to consume not create.

The interesting thing is they came in thinking what we did was easy and they would knock something up in a few months.

Well 6 months on still not even close to a finished product and the whole thing is starting to creak because of early decisions made in architecture etc.

Operational staff are also refusing to use the beta because it has not got any single part which is complete.

Think I will be called on soon to put in my Cape and fix it.

There is also a large arrogance around these people which is rather misplaced in my view.

[NickFitz]

GDS was a slow motion train wreck from the moment it was created. They waded in trying to tell everyone else how to work with the worst "Agile will fix it" mentality, were run on a jobs for boys basis and failed to deliver anything beyond a few re-skinned web sites that ended up being worse than the originals.

The fact that the knives are out now is hardly surprising.

I don't think that's really fair. To take one example, look at the online services for car tax, MOT, and other motoring related stuff that've been launched over the last couple of years: they're a huge improvement over what there was before, and that was primarily down to GDS. There are similar examples for other areas.

And several of the people I'm acquainted with who've had jobs there are girls

[bobspud]

Ironically, with what I know of personally, and what I've heard anecdotally (one recruiter told me it was 900 contractors all given the chop recently) is pretty much creating the outcome of the IR35 changes, which is to dump a load of us on the market at the same time.

I think you might know about 900 contractors getting the boot. Thats just crap being spouted by an agent that wants to install a lower rate expectation. Also my experience of projects getting canned is the name gets changed and a new stealth mode kicks in followed by a rebranding and final delivery. there are grave problems with projects getting canned thats why it hardly ever happens.

[nucastle]

Flippin' hell - Who would contract in the public sector if they had any alternative?

Then next April there will be yet more upheaval when the new IR35 determinations kick in.

Ironically, with what I know of personally, and what I've heard anecdotally (one recruiter told me it was 900 contractors all given the chop recently) is pretty much creating the outcome of the IR35 changes, which is to dump a load of us on the market at the same time.

[OwlHoot]

Nearly all the contractors who I worked with in Newcastle with DWP have either left, or been kicked in the past 4 weeks. Others that are still there have either just handed their notice in, or are in the process of jumping ship.

Just today, two of my ex-colleagues have been told not to come to work today as their contracts are being 'renegotiated' by one of the IT service providers who is selling them back to the government at roughly double what they themselves get. Co-incidentally their renewals started today so those have been torn up in the mean time.

This is all fact, and not 'what i heard'. There are other more salacious rumours doing the rounds about over spend that I can't comment on, but things have definitely changed recently. It appears that the likes of the Home Office and HMRC aren't affected by this currently, given what I'm hearing from recruiters and various questions I've asked in interviews in the last few weeks while looking for another gig.

Flippin' hell - Who would contract in the public sector if they had any alternative?

Then next April there will be yet more upheaval when the new IR35 determinations kick in.

[nucastle]

Nearly all the contractors who I worked with in Newcastle with DWP have either left, or been kicked in the past 4 weeks. Others that are still there have either just handed their notice in, or are in the process of jumping ship.

Just today, two of my ex-colleagues have been told not to come to work today as their contracts are being 'renegotiated' by one of the IT service providers who is selling them back to the government at roughly double what they themselves get. Co-incidentally their renewals started today so those have been torn up in the mean time.

This is all fact, and not 'what i heard'. There are other more salacious rumours doing the rounds about over spend that I can't comment on, but things have definitely changed recently. It appears that the likes of the Home Office and HMRC aren't affected by this currently, given what I'm hearing from recruiters and various questions I've asked in interviews in the last few weeks while looking for another gig.

[DaveB]

Government IT - has the war on waste stalled? - BBC News

Looks like there is a war going on... Not like Civil Servants to speak to the media, yet thats 3 or 4 stories about GDS in as many days all with sources quoted.

Gloves are off

GDS was a slow motion train wreck from the moment it was created. They waded in trying to tell everyone else how to work with the worst "Agile will fix it" mentality, were run on a jobs for boys basis and failed to deliver anything beyond a few re-skinned web sites that ended up being worse than the originals.

The fact that the knives are out now is hardly surprising.

[bobspud]

Government IT - has the war on waste stalled? - BBC News

Looks like there is a war going on... Not like Civil Servants to speak to the media, yet thats 3 or 4 stories about GDS in as many days all with sources quoted.

Gloves are off

[bobspud]

Worth half hour of anyones time because sadly most of the things said probably apply to private firms as much as Governments...

https://medium.com/@sheldonline/the-...f65#.7el5awc2u