[pithon]

I've heard people break the design/implement/test phases down to essentially equal parts in terms of cost. It's not a small task if you think about a government agency's testing capabilities potentially needing to be roughly 1/3 of what the private industry is throwing at it. I can see where they need to be pragmatic and adopt a stance where they're really just overseeing the vendor's testing and doing some spot checks. Not ideal, though.