[jbooth]

The contractors are hamstrung by their own business model. I'm sure a lot of the people on the ground are trying to do a good job, but when you're got a set-in-stone spec negotiated by people 4 levels of reporting away from the actual work in the trenches.. yeah that's probably not going to be a spec to do the right thing.

Whether they're contracted or government employees, we need to devolve authority from big top-down specs and towards programmers working alongside the actual users.

[GVIrish]

The problem is that the contractor doesn't write the RFP or the final contract, the customer does. So if you want that money you sign on the dotted line and hope for the best.

Within the contract there is often flexibility as to how the job gets done. But bottom line is that if you have a stubborn customer who insists on doing things the hard/stupid way, there's not a lot you can do. Maybe you go above their head and try to force a change but that is fraught with risk. The prudent thing to do from a financial standpoint is just put your head down and complete the contract, even if the work is compromised because of the customer you're dealing with. And indeed, that's what happens a lot of the time.

Fortunately more and more parts of government are buying into the agile mindset but there's still a lot of outdated thinking out there.

[vonmoltke]

> But bottom line is that if you have a stubborn customer who insists on doing things the hard/stupid way, there's not a lot you can do.

This is something most people who have never dealt with the US government don't understand, thus they put all the blame on the contractors. Many groups within the government are the epitome of the "customer from hell". They hire you to do a job, to build a product, but think that they (and their experts) know better how to do it than you. Essentially, all they want is a body shop to implement their design. This is not what most commercial outfits, particularly SV-type companies, are used to.