From a technical standpoint, you are absolutely correct, but reality and bureaucracy don’t always match.
I’ve had instances, where we had glaring holes in our security, but were not allowed to fix them, because the datacenter (operated by a public agency) only does deployment in a fixed schedule.
I’ve had officials of some sort who wrote in the contract, that each and every change has to be on the staging environment for at least one week for testing and signoff.
It’s absurd and stupid, but realistically, you often can’t change it.
That’s one of the reasons why dataport (who are going to do the migration as the state’s IT consultant / dev house) was founded in the first place: So that IT can work like IT does and not be beholden to bosses who think in bridge construction terms in one place, and tax collection terms in another. Now those bosses are mere clients of an inter-state agency that does nothing but IT, and IT can talk with its own authority when it comes to IT matters.
My employer currently works with a bunch of agencies and I’ve been involved with some of them. I can deliver the best product ever with the best process and lightning fast deployment - if the client doesn’t get its shit together, you won’t deliver on time/in budget.
Anecdote I’m currently part of: an agency bought a new app, we’re 98% done, we could go live on Tuesday. But there’s one agency/department/guy (I seriously don’t know) who has to confirm that the data of our staging system reached their system and was processed correctly. This agency however doesn’t react. At all. And because it’s something like 5mm outside of the jurisdiction of the agency that is our direct client, there’s nothing we can do. So the system is just sitting there waiting.
I could go on and on. Dataport is a good idea, but if all their clients are overworked, understaffed or straight up incompetent, there’s not much they could do.
But there’s one agency/department/guy (I seriously don’t know) who has to confirm that the data of our staging system reached their system and was processed correctly.
There’s no “their system”: The boxes under the desks of civil servants are managed by dataport, talking to backend infrastructure managed by dataport.
If there’s some new administrative procedure agencies or ministries want their civil servants to do and it can’t be implemented because it’s under-specced or just incoherent then dataport gets to send that spec back saying “fix your shit”, if it’s implemented as specced and people complain then dataport can say “well it’s your budget, not ours”. If they do that all the time at some point the court of accounts will take them aside for a polite conversation. Just thing one thing, making IT external to whatever it is that the agency is doing, provides accountability.
That is: The solution isn’t so much to eradicate bullshit but to make sure that it stays where it’s generated.
but if all their clients are overworked, understaffed or straight up incompetent
agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 9 months ago
You never worked with bureaucracy, did you?
From a technical standpoint, you are absolutely correct, but reality and bureaucracy don’t always match.
I’ve had instances, where we had glaring holes in our security, but were not allowed to fix them, because the datacenter (operated by a public agency) only does deployment in a fixed schedule.
I’ve had officials of some sort who wrote in the contract, that each and every change has to be on the staging environment for at least one week for testing and signoff.
It’s absurd and stupid, but realistically, you often can’t change it.
rikudou@lemmings.world 9 months ago
I did, that’s why I’m talking about it.
In my experience, what you say is absolutely true, but glaring bugs like that are deployed as a hotfix.
barsoap@lemm.ee 9 months ago
That’s one of the reasons why dataport (who are going to do the migration as the state’s IT consultant / dev house) was founded in the first place: So that IT can work like IT does and not be beholden to bosses who think in bridge construction terms in one place, and tax collection terms in another. Now those bosses are mere clients of an inter-state agency that does nothing but IT, and IT can talk with its own authority when it comes to IT matters.
agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 9 months ago
That won’t change a thing, unfortunately.
My employer currently works with a bunch of agencies and I’ve been involved with some of them. I can deliver the best product ever with the best process and lightning fast deployment - if the client doesn’t get its shit together, you won’t deliver on time/in budget.
Anecdote I’m currently part of: an agency bought a new app, we’re 98% done, we could go live on Tuesday. But there’s one agency/department/guy (I seriously don’t know) who has to confirm that the data of our staging system reached their system and was processed correctly. This agency however doesn’t react. At all. And because it’s something like 5mm outside of the jurisdiction of the agency that is our direct client, there’s nothing we can do. So the system is just sitting there waiting.
I could go on and on. Dataport is a good idea, but if all their clients are overworked, understaffed or straight up incompetent, there’s not much they could do.
barsoap@lemm.ee 9 months ago
There’s no “their system”: The boxes under the desks of civil servants are managed by dataport, talking to backend infrastructure managed by dataport.
If there’s some new administrative procedure agencies or ministries want their civil servants to do and it can’t be implemented because it’s under-specced or just incoherent then dataport gets to send that spec back saying “fix your shit”, if it’s implemented as specced and people complain then dataport can say “well it’s your budget, not ours”. If they do that all the time at some point the court of accounts will take them aside for a polite conversation. Just thing one thing, making IT external to whatever it is that the agency is doing, provides accountability.
That is: The solution isn’t so much to eradicate bullshit but to make sure that it stays where it’s generated.
I’ll just leave this here.