Tom Gilb and Kai Gilb's blog

From: Tom Gilb tom@gilb.com
Sent: 2009-12-03 10:14:10 CET
To: Frederik Hermann Siegumfeldt frhs@itst.dk

Subject: here is a summary of my 5 oral remarks after your talk at Agile 09 Copenhagen 2 Dec09

1. Agile is not any kind of main solution to the problem of failed or bad government projects.
It has no track record of doing so
Iteration (aka Evolutionary, US DoD Std 494, 1994, an Evolutionary standard, distancing itself from Waterfall) is a very useful principle, long before the 'Agile' era.
But you must not confuse Rapid delivery cycle feedback, with Agile. Agile (like Scrum, actually does the feedback process very badly! The requirements are screwed up, so feedback works badly, see 2 below)

2. The primary problem with large projects today, in my extensive international experience, is "THE LACK OF CLARITY AND FOCUS ON THE TOP FEW CRITICAL OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT."
http://www.gilb.com/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=180
Eight CASE STUDIES
and also

http://www.gilb.com/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=237
Vision Engineering: how to convert management phrases into measurable targets and measurable strategies.

The problem is that projects, agile or not, fail to set really clear objectives (quantified improvements in several critical dimensions, like efficiency, productivity, responsiveness, ease of use, security, maintainability, adaptability). h development and test teams are not at all focussed on these wooly objectives, They are in fact forgotten forever.

Projects then fail to deliver actual expectations and hopes, to the woolly goals.

3. Systems Engineering: the IT and Software culture is incredibly 'algorithmic centered'. Their whole world is 'delivered code' (even databases are almost never mentioned!).
The problem is that delivery of value requires much more than some functional code, and in many cases we can deliver value best by NOT developing ANY code, even for an it system! For example by training or motivating users or passing a law or implementing a management policy or writing a contract.
So, our REAL solution, needs to be explicit about the DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT. The development environment CANNOT BE LIMITED TO COMPUTER CODE. One way to do this is to focus on real value delivery, and allow ANY MEANS TO GET THERE.

Another view of the same thing is to officially adopt the SYSTEMS ENGINEERING paradigm (INCOSE.ORG). To say " we are systems engineering, we use any hardware, software, or human-organizational 'technologies' to reach our VALUE DELIVERY objectives.

Admittedly, Scrum, as taught by Jeff Sutherland, can be used for projects of any kind, because the essence is simply a rapid cycle feedback learning loop (which Scrum did not invent by any means).
BUT, most Scrum users we know, are code-centric. They do not apply a systems wide perspective.

So, if DANMARK is going to solve the problem of successfully building large government systems WE MUST SHIFT TO A 'SYSTEMS ENGINEERING' (Incose.org) paradigm.
We must put the coders in their place, as one technical component of a larger project, if used at all to solve some problems! People built large national systems without software milleniums ago!

4. The problem with getting successful IT systems is NOT 'the right process' (agile or other).

It is the motivation to deliver value! We have no such motivation. In fact we have negative motivation!

If the projecr runds over cost and time, the suppliers earn far more money

(FOR EXCELLENT DOCUMENTATION SEE Craigs book: Plundering the Public Sector
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plundering-Public-Sector-David-Craig/dp/1845293746

My suggestion is that we must move in the direction of NO CURE NO PAY contracting. Suppliers only get paid for value delivered, not work done.
http://www.gilb.com/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=38 no cure no pay paper
http://www.gilb.com/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=85 ncnp slides

THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD LEAD, ON MAKING THIS THE NORM!

PS the combined mafia-like (I can't think of a nicer description) forces (D. Craig, book above and below) of Accenture, CSC, Price Waterhouse and their like will massively oppose this. We need strong political leadership. Is anyone in Denmark strong enough to make this happen? Not yet!

5.THE MAFIA CONSPIRACY:
as mentioned SEE Craigs book: Plundering the Public Sector
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plundering-Public-Sector-David-Craig/dp/1845293746
The biggest problem is not technical. It is about money and power.

See the tragedy of medical systems IT
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141428/
Harvard_study_Computers_don_t_save_hospitals_money?taxonomyId=12&pageNumber=1

THIS IS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN 'AGILE' !
The Prime Minister should lead, and ministers should also support and lead.

Should Denmark have the courage and ability to tackle these problems, I would be happy to help in various ways.

There are no leaders in the world on these issues: be a world leader, Denmark, in stopping to pollution of bad IT projects in government.This is also an 'environmental' problem!

Tom