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[Terbs]

Saw the news today...The BBC have cancelled their IT project. Lost 100 million pounds.

But the best bit was the statement...'MP's said this was a disgraceful waste of money'

Oh yeah...once again  the pot calls the kettle black

[slowboy]

BBC & IT they don't mix

[tunnie]

A mate is a developer at BBC, the amount of hoops they have to jump through to get things done is just insane. 

[Terbs]

Only heard the basics....what was the reason for the cancellation, and what was the System they scrubbed

[tunnie]

Only heard the basics....what was the reason for the cancellation, and what was the System they scrubbed

They wanted to do away with tapes and move to a 100% digital production system, as they have a huge archive of footage, the idea was to have that all available on tap.


100 million down the road and its still not working, so they pulled the plug

[Terbs]

Seems a hell of a lot of money spent, before it was realised it was not going to work. I would have thought it would have shown up earlier. Someone must have failed in the homework.
I assume the system they wanted was not a tried and tested unit, and was a trial and error as it goes along

[omega3000]

John Linwood, the BBC’s chief technology officer who is paid an annual salary of £280,000, has been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation

 

[Vamps]

I heard, on the news, that there were warning signs some years ago on more that one occasion, this is a terrible waste of the licence payers money and a simple sorry should not be enough. I realise that someone has been suspended but there must be more people involved, when I first heard this, the suggestion was that we have wasted all this money, sorry and left at that; this is our money........

[TheBoy]

the amount of hoops they have to jump through to get things done is just insane. 

Its called ITIL. Any corporation that decides to use it (or, more accurately, forced to use it by the usual retards with no understanding, but like the sound of their voice) will bury itself in unmanagable bureaucracy. For example, changing a user's permissions involves 10s/100s of manhours in organising, just for someone to type chmod (or right click in Windows World).

[Rods2]

Just reading this it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare. At one point it was a specified in a mere 11 volumes of text. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library

[Terbs]

Thanks for that link, matey...My god I have to agree with you.

It seems to me that projects like this build themselves into a self destruct unit
Its just mind boggling that these sums of money are thrown at a project in total oblivion of the consequences of same. Surely somewhere along the line (before £100 million) someone in the organization must ask the question
I am trying not to be political on this thread, but to me its in alignment to something like HS2, where figures are banded about like feathers in the wind. Is it because its not their monies as such. As a one time employer within a company, I know how easy it is to spend 'company money', and also refuse or allow workers a rise. After all it did not affect me or my lifestyle if I refused to grant a rise, same as spending company money did not affect my bank account.
Do the mega company executives operate on this theory. Obviously, as I understand the BBC top dog is suspended, there is a risk.....but they always bounce back in somewhere.
Top man is the scapegoat.....but there must have been a large amount of advisors who gave the project the thumbs up........

[TheBoy]

Most companies that have to deal with the government at an IT level are forced into ITIL. Government departments obviously use it as well. Its yet another reason why the entire civil service is unfit for purpose, as its completely unworkable at the technical level (but gives senior managers enough material for daily wankwordbingo). I can only imagine how similar non-IT civil service departments are.

[jimac]

I don't think you can blame ITIL per se.  ITIL can be as simple or as complex as you want (the motto seems to be "it depends"  ) and there are no compliance credentials as such.  The boundaries for requiring change control are defined by the organisation, as is the level of detail recorded in the CMDB.

The problem tends to come from Senior Managers who have attended an "ITIL Awareness" presentation who then think they are experts and try to wrap everything up in a one-size-fits-all set of procedures and processes just in case any of their staff try to think and use their initiative.  If an actual ITIL-qualified manager tries to apply some reason and logic by relating the scope of activity to the value to the business they get talked over, sneered at and generally treated like 70's throwback at an Equality and Diversity seminar.

Or that's my experience anyway.   

[Terbs]

I had a situation years ago when manager of a large company in Wycombe. We had to do a seminar on Total Quality Control. We had two blokes giving this lecture, basically its all about achieving 'perfection'
After listening to them banging on for ages, I asked the question...'How can you achieve TQC with human involvement'. Answer was befuddled gobbledegook after a little huddle, on the lines of allowed human error. So I asked..'What is the accepted percentage level of human error, and if you allow human error, how can you have TQC.
Their answer was (after another huddle)...'To be honest, we have never been asked that question, and quite honestly, we don't know the answer'
I said....'Allowing human error, was contradictory to TQC'. I was well away now, so I said...So why are you drumming into us that we must have TQC, when you also say its impossible.'
They then said....' We will have to report back with your questions'.
I looked at my MD and he did not look happy, and I thought...'That's my job gone'     but afterwards the MD came up and said 'Good for you....I told HQ this was a ******* waste of time and money.
To sum up...it shows those in high places feed you Bullsh*t, till they get caught out