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Dangerous Enthusiasms: E-government, Computer Failure and Information System Development
Information and the technology that supports its collection, communication and analysis is a core concern of modern government, making e-government (meaning electronically enabled government) fundamental to the ongoing "reinvention" of public administration. But the quest for e-government opens up a range of issues - whether to take a "big bang" or an incremental approach to computerization, how to deal with security and privacy concerns, how to reconfigure the machinery of government to fit ICT practices - and decisions - hardware and software procurement, software architecture, access by whom to what. The spending of public money is always intriguing and perhaps money spent on ICT has been the most intriguing of all, with some spectacular failures costing millions. This book is written for a general audience and takes a critical look at policies, problems and prospects for e-government in a series of case studies. Why have ICT failures in the public sector occurred and what lessons do they provide for the future?
- GenresNonfiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 2006
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May 22, 2024
Quite a dated book about large IT projects but nevertheless the problems, and conclusions are still present in 2024.
I bought this book sometime in 2017 and it's been sitting there waiting to be read for a while, but it's been one I had been looking forward to getting too. It was referenced in one of John Seddon's books, mentioning how organisations turn to ICT vendors and consultants to deliver change. Said vendors and consultants then make a catastrophic mess and often the same vendors and consultants get paid to fix the problems they cause. It's an 'only in ICT' scenario I feel, but one, which anyone who works in change or IT, particularly in the public sector would recognise.
The book was published in 2006 and to be honest it feels like going right back in time, with all the language around e-government, Y2K and digital transformation. At times the book feels very dated - it's case studies are from the mid 1990's onwards in New Zealand, but that's not the fault of the author, more me for reading it nearly 20 years later after publishing.
The book hits the nail on the head though in it's assessment of project management of ICT, and how more or different project management isn't the answer. In the introduction it mentions the digitisation of NHS records in the UK which the author says, 'will probably fail'. He wasn't wrong - this project was commissioned in 2002 at a cost of £3bn. It was abandoned in 2008 at a cost of £6.4 bn having delivered nothing. In 2013 costs were still rising five years after abandonment with costs to the UK tax-payer of nearly ten billion pounds!
There have been many more similar IT catastrophes in the years since. The book posits that most IT projects fail - now there is no single definition of failure - but generally speaking anything that is abandoned, or doesn't do what it intended to do, or had significant time or cost increases could consider a failure.
What was frustrating was reading about these challenges and circumstances written in 2006 and how nothing has changed today. I've seen all of the below in the last year or so where I work;
No recourse to the consultants who advise and deliver badly
No damage to the profits of software developers and vendors, who promise the earth, being economical with their tenders and requirements delivery who deliver rubbish software
Poor estimation of planning, time, resources required, financials and quality, and the risk of failure
Nothing's changed....
The best chapters in the book are the introduction and the conclusion, the intervening chapters are case studies which are illustrative of the key points (reliance on consultants, ineffective oversight - and a belief in project management, and the ripping off of the public sector by the IT industry). The most notable one is for the New Zealand police IT system which cost $100M NZ before being abandoned - to put into context the annual police budget was $800M NZ so these failures aren't cheap.
The Dangerous Enthusiasms Gauld evidences are:
Idolisation - that IT can transform organisations (see Digital Transformation, Digital First policies). The idea that all we need to more tech to save us.
Technophilia - Similar to idolisation, the notion that technology will solve practical problems. I see examples of this where technology design aims to change how people think and change cultures. It's fanciful and is often a way of kicking down the road the hard work of thinking about how you want people to work and interact with each other. This is particularly foolish
Lomanism - from 'The Death of a Salesman' - the idea that customers demand the impossible and the vendors promise the earth to get the sale, leading to a lack of frankness and honesty about what can or should be done. See every tender or requirements document for more details!
Managerialism - the curse of New Public Management, and how 'better IT' can lead to more reports, more controls, more authorisations, more auditing, more dashboards, more information, more MANAGING. This is a biggie for me, I have seen a number of initiatives warped and changed when the 'interesting, thinking, stuff' is replaced by 'more IT' and the way leaders address problems is through MORE CONTROL
So yeah, all live and kicking in 2024.
I don't necessarily agree with everything Gauld says, (basically don't try anything new, keep systems if they work and make IT fit existing processes) BUT he is correct in a lot of other ways. It isn't a binary choice between changing processes and structures to fit the IT OR making the IT fit the processes. Rather an alternative approach is, 'design the way you want to work and be, and then commission IT to support you to do this'.
I also share his scepticism about consultants. A quarter of a century from some of these examples and the public sector is still riddled with consultants and organisations still buy in rather than develop expertise. There is a shocking example in the book of a consultant winning the tender of a design for an initiative, developing the design. Then the same consultant bid on the build, wins the bid and then turns to the customer and says 'it can't be done'. They still get paid for the impossible build and the design of the thing that wasn't specified or asked for...Shameful really.
So it's a book about outdated tech, a but dry in the middle, but the lessons still haven't been learned despite the proliferation of 'lessons learned' documents.
I bought this book sometime in 2017 and it's been sitting there waiting to be read for a while, but it's been one I had been looking forward to getting too. It was referenced in one of John Seddon's books, mentioning how organisations turn to ICT vendors and consultants to deliver change. Said vendors and consultants then make a catastrophic mess and often the same vendors and consultants get paid to fix the problems they cause. It's an 'only in ICT' scenario I feel, but one, which anyone who works in change or IT, particularly in the public sector would recognise.
The book was published in 2006 and to be honest it feels like going right back in time, with all the language around e-government, Y2K and digital transformation. At times the book feels very dated - it's case studies are from the mid 1990's onwards in New Zealand, but that's not the fault of the author, more me for reading it nearly 20 years later after publishing.
The book hits the nail on the head though in it's assessment of project management of ICT, and how more or different project management isn't the answer. In the introduction it mentions the digitisation of NHS records in the UK which the author says, 'will probably fail'. He wasn't wrong - this project was commissioned in 2002 at a cost of £3bn. It was abandoned in 2008 at a cost of £6.4 bn having delivered nothing. In 2013 costs were still rising five years after abandonment with costs to the UK tax-payer of nearly ten billion pounds!
There have been many more similar IT catastrophes in the years since. The book posits that most IT projects fail - now there is no single definition of failure - but generally speaking anything that is abandoned, or doesn't do what it intended to do, or had significant time or cost increases could consider a failure.
What was frustrating was reading about these challenges and circumstances written in 2006 and how nothing has changed today. I've seen all of the below in the last year or so where I work;
No recourse to the consultants who advise and deliver badly
No damage to the profits of software developers and vendors, who promise the earth, being economical with their tenders and requirements delivery who deliver rubbish software
Poor estimation of planning, time, resources required, financials and quality, and the risk of failure
Nothing's changed....
The best chapters in the book are the introduction and the conclusion, the intervening chapters are case studies which are illustrative of the key points (reliance on consultants, ineffective oversight - and a belief in project management, and the ripping off of the public sector by the IT industry). The most notable one is for the New Zealand police IT system which cost $100M NZ before being abandoned - to put into context the annual police budget was $800M NZ so these failures aren't cheap.
The Dangerous Enthusiasms Gauld evidences are:
Idolisation - that IT can transform organisations (see Digital Transformation, Digital First policies). The idea that all we need to more tech to save us.
Technophilia - Similar to idolisation, the notion that technology will solve practical problems. I see examples of this where technology design aims to change how people think and change cultures. It's fanciful and is often a way of kicking down the road the hard work of thinking about how you want people to work and interact with each other. This is particularly foolish
Lomanism - from 'The Death of a Salesman' - the idea that customers demand the impossible and the vendors promise the earth to get the sale, leading to a lack of frankness and honesty about what can or should be done. See every tender or requirements document for more details!
Managerialism - the curse of New Public Management, and how 'better IT' can lead to more reports, more controls, more authorisations, more auditing, more dashboards, more information, more MANAGING. This is a biggie for me, I have seen a number of initiatives warped and changed when the 'interesting, thinking, stuff' is replaced by 'more IT' and the way leaders address problems is through MORE CONTROL
So yeah, all live and kicking in 2024.
I don't necessarily agree with everything Gauld says, (basically don't try anything new, keep systems if they work and make IT fit existing processes) BUT he is correct in a lot of other ways. It isn't a binary choice between changing processes and structures to fit the IT OR making the IT fit the processes. Rather an alternative approach is, 'design the way you want to work and be, and then commission IT to support you to do this'.
I also share his scepticism about consultants. A quarter of a century from some of these examples and the public sector is still riddled with consultants and organisations still buy in rather than develop expertise. There is a shocking example in the book of a consultant winning the tender of a design for an initiative, developing the design. Then the same consultant bid on the build, wins the bid and then turns to the customer and says 'it can't be done'. They still get paid for the impossible build and the design of the thing that wasn't specified or asked for...Shameful really.
So it's a book about outdated tech, a but dry in the middle, but the lessons still haven't been learned despite the proliferation of 'lessons learned' documents.
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