SAIC Spherion NYC Gov CityTime NYC Gov Con$ulant Happy - An Email to Suzannah B. Troy

Dear Blog Followers: This is from an email I received from someone who does tech consulting and just a reminder to my audience The NY Post exposed Gartner's role in quality control on Spherion in an article by Sally Goldenberg "Kick Back in Time" and than gave it cement shoes because it appears SAIC and Glen Hutchins Gartner are sacred cows. SAIC people were served subponeas but all we the people hear our silence as SAIC continues it's expansion of CityTime.



Here is the email:

On Information Technology Project Management

In my present capacity as an independent consultant for small business, I often have to propose system projects to my customers, usually directly to the business owners. These proposals are presented with exact and precise costs, time-lines for execution and testing for results.

For example, in November, 2009 I had to accomplish a complete system replacement for a medical office within one weekend. 12 computers to be replaced by 12 new systems with everything operative on Monday morning.

The cost was kept extremely low, the task performed with efficiency and the business was operative as required.

On another occasion, their server crashed on a Sunday and was fully restored within 3 hours. I am proud of my support for my clients and consideration for the businesses.

My billing practices are stated up-front and strictly adhered to.

In a previous life with corporate support for a major insurance company, larger projects are managed the same way, albeit with management meetings to discuss progress, address issues and modify the task list as may be required. Communication is kept open up to management and down to staff. As little as possible is left to chance. Controls are firmly in place.

Outsourcing is immensely popular, private firms are shipping American jobs to India by the thousands. But the loss of IN-HOUSE control is a huge danger. Case in point: one internal IT employee (outsourced but still working inside) completed a project in a 10 hour window. Fine. The outsourcing firm had advised the client that the project COULD take 10 to 20 hours. Guess what happened. The client was billed for 20, not 10, hours. And this is to save money.

When a private or public sector entity loses control of critical employees, the floodgates to disaster are flung open. The public sector is different from private, and in light of SAIC and the CityTime project, the contracting agency, individual consultants and the Bloomburg administration are all to blame for this management nightmare.

SAIC did not (apparently) strongly cooperate and communicate on project progress with the City of New York, for it is had done so, a relatively complex time-keeping system would never have grown over 10 years to a $780 million dollar (and counting) white elephant. Changes and modifications would have been implemented YEARS AGO to reign in and keep this project running well.

Worse Individual consultants, whether contracted by Spherion or SAIC to perform the work, were stupidly given Carte-Blanche to bill and invoice and count their hours WITHOUT ANY LIMIT by the Bloomburg administration. This much has been admitted. Some consultants were undoubtedly honest about this. But in an open field of unlimited funding and open-ended work, it was a situation ripe for the taking. And consultants took. In turn, Spherion and SAIC profited enormously. Why should any one be surprised? There was no accountability here, no oversight, no controls present. As in the old Bugs Bunny - Daffy Duck cartoon, " IT'S RABBIT SEASON!!!!

Let us consider Project Connect, the Internet to Education project that was seriously abused by a consultant who paid his own staff $40 an hour and then billed the City over $200 an hour and kept the difference. How could this happen. "It's DUCK SEASON." No management oversight, accountability, etc.

Let us consider too the $80 million theft from CityTime that Michael Bloomburg has called (in effect) just one of those things.  With teachers being fired and firehouses being closed .... hey, $80 million could go some distance Mr. Mayor. Or are firing teachers and closing firehouses just one of those little old things too?

Lastly, as a business owner, Michael Bloomburg should know better. He did not build his news empire by being stupid, or blind, or both. He's got the business smarts, but he abandoned them when he took the oath of office.