DHL Global Forwarding Failed on Software, and That’s Why It’s Being Sold Cheaply

Pretty much any telephone billing system is late or shelved, for example.

In this case, you have a shipping conglomerate with divisions that can't talk to each other.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3010156/sap-dont-blame-us-for...

Actually I don't even know how SAP became so popular it's horrible

It's not just about the money though, it's also about having the mandate to get shit done (and probably hurting a bunch of feelings/fiefdoms) along the way.

Keep in mind, there's not this one magical system that keeps things going that by getting a bunch of really smart guys will right itself.

Often times, it's a combination of COTS and custom software that has grown organically over the years.

So take for example, one of my previous projects, which was to spin up new IT for a PE spinoff. There were over 70 major applications to account for with tons of associated business processes, functionality etc. It was a massive undertaking but yes, it's doable.

You should read the post mortem on the Target Canada debacle to understand the pressures behind a huge software project.

Just look at most UK Government IT projects. They've got it down to a fine art, blowing billions and being left with nothing useful.

Several major international government consultancy firms got their break on supposed small UK Gov IT projects, and were able to keep billing $1,000's/hour for years (while delivering nothing useful) and became big IT consultancies in the process. The failure didn't harm them one little bit - it let them claim the have experience and that got them way more work.

IT project failure in large and complex organizations is practically guaranteed.

Now, if they did that small-ish team, paid well, it could well work. But your board is not going to approve some pizza munching, jolt cola drinking geeks as your wonder IT team. Don't worry what the team is really like, the consultants asked by the board to review them as part of the process will make sure they're described as the aforementioned pizza and cola weirdos. And recommend using the consultants team instead. Been there. Done that.

The other thing is how can a business person tell the difference between a star programmer and some random mediocre coder? It's not like if it is a profession with reliable minimum standards. It's a bit like psychanalysts, anyone can declare himself a developer.

  How does one spend $1 billion on software and fail?

Epic failure creating sofware is common enough that there's a Wiki page commemorating it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_failed_and_overbudget_...

My own state managed to piss away around $200 million just on a website to sign people up for health care. It's hard to believe something that insane, but Oracle was involved so perhaps it's plausible.

My experience in enterprise software suggests that the way many large enterprises -- private and public -- wrap more layers of review, bureaucracy, and big up front design on projects the more money is involved (specifically intended as a risk management technique) is a big contributing factor to this.

So is the idea of a big software project. Almost without exceptional, large enterprise "software" projects really need to be conceived as business process reengineering efforts, where changes to automation are one of means of implementing the reengineering.