Re: [xml-dev] XML As Fall Guy

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

I suspect the fundamental issue at the heart of healthcare.gov and a lot of government projects (by no means just in software development, or just in the U.S. Federal Government) is the reliance on outside vendors instead of developing qualified in-house teams and talent. 

I've worked on big projects where the the client and the vendor worked together as a team, both committed to the success of the project, both trusting each other, both doing what was necessary to make the thing work rather than constantly watching out for the revenue and risk implications of every little decision. Sadly, not very often, and usually with private sector clients.

A much more common scenario was the bid situation where I spotted an inconsistency in the tender document, and the project manager made a careful note of it in the book of bugs to be used after contract award in order to extort maximum "change control" revenue from the client.

Michael Kay

Saxonica