Open Source and 'Agile' methods gaining political support

Political clout is now behind the 'Open Source' approach to software. It saves money - a lot of money. Also, 'agile' methods of development are being favoured over 'Big bang' implementations of IT projects. Many of these projects have gone badly wrong. According to a parliamentary committee, difficulties have arisen because of a lack of knowledge, skills and failing project management 101. Civil servants have stuck with Microsoft and an "oligopoly" of large suppliers and have not embraced new fangled ideas about software. This coupled with a desire for big pieces of technology to make policies "look sexy" has resultant in projects over running and cost escalating.

See links below. 05 September 2011

Can Whitehall open up to open source?

Rory Cellan-Jones,BBC Technology correspondent,5/9/11

"[C]ivil service mindset that has always preferred to spend money with the biggest firms ...open-source providers may struggle to get a hearing... [civil servants] don't have the skills internally to assess the software...Right now, the idea of trying to work with Whitehall is pretty daunting to small, open-source providers. ..The good news is that there is plenty of political weight behind opening the doors to new software ideas - especially if they can save money"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14765545

IT giants 'ripping off Whitehall', say MPs.

28/07/2011

Government departments have been ripped off by a "cartel" of big IT firms, a damning report by a committee of MPs has found...Some were paying as much as 10 times the commercial rate for equipment and up to £3,500 for a single desktop PC...The lack of IT skills in government and over-reliance on contracting out is a fundamental problem which has been described as a 'recipe for rip-offs'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14314935

Government and IT- "A Recipe For Rip-Offs": Time For A New Approach - Public Administration Committee

28/7/11

"[The] government's overall record in developing and implementing new IT systems is appalling ... We found that government is currently over-reliant on a small "oligopoly" of large suppliers, which some witnesses referred to as a "cartel"... The challenges that government seeks to address are constantly changing. Often the IT systems that government develops are already out of date before they have been implemented. The Government needs to move towards the use of agile and iterative development methods which enable IT programmes to adapt to changes."

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/715/71503.htm

Whitehall IT chief Ian Watmore attacks Labour's record

Brian Wheeler,30/3/11

Ian Watmore gave a scathing assessment of the previous government's IT record...some of the high profile IT "fiascos" under the previous government had not been down to defective technology but to poor project management and badly-defined policies ...there were people thinking they needed to have a piece of technology to make their policy sound sexy ...He said the "so-called IT disasters" of recent years were not down to technical problems but "over-ambitious projects" that were expected to deliver complex changes at a national level on a single day, "the so-called 'Big Bang' implementation".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12905303

Teleinformatics

'Open Source' software 'cloud computing' and need for agile methods of building software are all discussed here:

http://www.softengines.co.uk/page.php?id=teleinformatics

| Duncan Stonebridge. Back