I suspect the reason for that is that Capita were going to get paid however vague the brief. In fact, the less well-defined the brief, the greater the chances of billing extras later on- “Oh, you didn’t make it clear you wanted that- it’s not in the brief.”

So the developers actually did deliver for the people who pay them: They’re employed by Capita and Capita made more money.

The issue with outsourcing IT is that you outsource the expertise you need for sensible procurement to the people you’re procuring stuff from. So you end up more or less with them specifying what you’re going to pay them to do.

Sure, the project costs over-run, but senior people smugly point to their shiny outsourcing agreement and make the point that it’s saving them money somewhere else. It must be- after all, that’s why they agreed to it.

These ‘partnership’ arrangements like Service Birmingham are particularly awful for this, because the council thinks it’s got some cosy, mutually beneficial arrangement that’s much better than just contracting out a service. Meanwhile, the partner nudges the profits up here and there, while delivering the headline ‘savings’ in the agreed areas.

With a normal contract, you can eventually dump an underperforming supplier and get a new one. With a partnership agreement, the tangle of joint arrangements makes getting out a near-impossible nightmare. Which is why Capita like that sort of thing.

There appear to be quite a few errors in the described process here (note, however, that I have not looked at the actual specifics of the project involved; only the references here), the most glaring of which surround what the client is requiring (in their brief or whatever) and how an agency responds to that. The client has no business whatsoever prescribing what should be built and how and the agency has no business responding to an RFP or public tendering of a brief as requested if the requests or details are inappropriate.

The client should simply detail the problems or challenges they need to address and describe the desired result of the project, along with their budget for doing so. In other words, detail what needs to be fixed, not how it should be fixed. It is for the agency to detail the process and components; for they are the experts in this regard and this is their responsibility! If the agency cedes their responsibilities to the client, the project is lost from the beginning. In such cases success is improbable at best and likely impossible. This practice is highly unprofessional and should preclude their being hired in the first place.

It is for the agency to say how long the project will take, according to the requirements, not the client. It is for the agency to determine the client’s involvement in the specific project process components. Unless the agency runs the project, the project is doomed no matter who the individuals are. Unless they are an agency themselves, the client is not in the business of running design projects and will always do so wrongly. An agency or individual who allows the client to run the project is unqualified to be involved. Professional practice demands professional responsibility. And professional standards are not standards if they are negotiable.

The deliverables should be defined at the outset of the project before contracts are signed. If the project is so complex as to make this impossible, only those portions of the project where deliverables can be defined should be contracted …and subsequent portions of the project approached as separate projects as circumstances allow that they can be clearly defined. To do otherwise is to trade professionalism and wisdom for idiocy and guesses. Poor form.

Commission a specialist website development company with a track record of delivering complex websites to budget and to timescale, rather than – say – a generic IT outsourcing company.

The irony here is that the reality of the web team putting together the new BCC site is possibly uncannily similar to the ‘ideal’ process Jon outlined.

Jon, I don’t think the real issue is a lack of web developers caring about the problem. In my experience, the developers and project managers tend to care deeply about the problems they’re solving and feel that they are fighting a daily battle against organisational politics, third-party software vendors, and basic client-misunderstandings to get those problems solved. For that reason all websites are usually a compromise between the ideal, and the practicalities that have to be accepted in order to deliver.

And that last word is key. Steve Jobs said that ‘real artists ship’. Solving the problems in new and innovative ways is nice, but delivering *something that works* is more important. When we work with larger public sector organisations at Made, we sometimes find that delivery is not really at the core of the organisation’s ethos. For that reason it has to be us chasing the client, driving delivery rather than the other way around. That commitment to delivery takes sustained effort and joint experience, which is what would make me sceptical about your ‘hire a bunch of freelancers and give them six years’ approach.

Other than that, what you’re describing is similar to agile software development methodologies. These always appeal to programmers because they saves one from having to think it all through before you start coding. However this methodology is completely at odds with the classic public sector tendering system, which attempts to specify the project in its entirity before even speaking to prospective developers. But then, if you had £600K to spend, wouldn’t you want to know what you were going to get for it before you signed the contract? In addition, agile methodologies do not work well in large political organisations, because they rely on a client sponsor who’s not afraid to take quick decisions when presented with alternatives. Does that sound like Birmingham City Council to you?

Without the good relationship a lot of the process stuff falls away.

Maybe someone should create a TV programme – “when projects go bad”

Stef makes good points re BCC procurement and relationship with Capita, but let’s not be limited by actual circumstances here (remember I’m being idealistic here… using what in horrible management speak would be “blue sky thinking”). Also I’m keen to think about the bigger picture.

I just wanted to pick up on a theme from amongst some of the comments:

Do we really think it is too much to ask for some idealism from web developers and designers?

Why can’t we expect the designer of a website for a public agency to care about the services that are being delivered?

I’m pretty sure that for everyone in the industry chasing money to buy the latest apple gadget or new media trainers, there are people with a real desire to produce work that has some social benefit (while also earning good money).