Re: Your govmu.org account

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 23:12:54 -0700

Hello,
At 22:12 24-06-2015, Vy-Shane Sin Fat wrote:
>What do you mean by "development in the cloud"?

It's like doing software development with limited understanding of
what it will produce.

>For me, this goes beyond technical issues. It's been clear for quite
>some time now that the government isn't taking ownership of the nation's IT.
>
>Let's look at this one isolated case:
>
>- No ownership of branding.
>- No administrative ownership (e.g. the Government doesn't even own
>the Apple account used to publish the iOS app, have effectively zero
>control over the app and can be held to ransom).
>- No ownership of infrastructure.
>- No ownership of the project. Clearly, since the issue reported by
>Ish should never have passed acceptance testing.

The points which you listed are considered as part of the issues for
a technology project.

I asked about whether there were any technical specifications for the
Government Portal. The reply I got is that it is included in the
tender. The details of the tender are not published on the National
Computer Board web site. How can there be acceptance testing if
there aren't any specifications to comply with?

>This happens so often that it can only be called a cultural problem
>in our government. A blatant lack of ownership by project
>stakeholders, leading to management failures. The technical problems
>are merely the symptoms.

It is unlikely that decision-makers will understand how poor
decisions can hamper the success of a project if they have a poor
understanding of technology.

>Culture -> Management -> Technical failures

Yes.

>It will take more than a decade to turn this ship around.

Yes.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Thu Jun 25 2015 - 06:13:14 PST