So Key is standing by Parata...

[Winston001]

National are destroying the education system bit by bit.

With respect, no they aren't. And Labour weren't destroying the education system either when they began this process of modernising the payroll system in 2005.

This is not a political issue. It is a simple matter of a contractor over-promising and under-performing which I suggest we have all experienced from time to time.

[Wayne]

This is not a political issue. It is a simple matter of a contractor over-promising and under-performing which I suggest we have all experienced from time to time.

Agreed. How it got the go ahead to release is another matter though.

[Learning]

With respect, no they aren't. And Labour weren't destroying the education system either when they began this process of modernising the payroll system in 2005.

Trying to raise class sizes, moves to introduce charter schools, publishing unmoderated national standards results, closures and mergers based on short term economics rather than long term practicality (some are justifiable) , forcing priorities of Maori education above sciences, history, economics, etc, promoting demolition over growth (the MOE will give $70K to rib down a building or dig up a school swimming pool but not a cent above the schools set budget to maintain or upgrade it) , and dragging their feet with No(va)Pay.

They may not be destroying it but they are having a good go.

[Bob Kane]

It is a simple matter of a contractor over-promising and under-performing which I suggest we have all experienced from time to time.

Salesmen are trained to over-promise.
Is there a lesson about 'accept the lowest quote at your peril' going on here?
With $100 million involved you would think the Education Dept would have engaged some competent managers to ensure Novopay/talent2 delivered.

[Bob Kane]

How it got the go ahead to release is another matter though.

Agreed.
147 defects in the new system.
Switch off and decommission the old system.
Now lets go live - what could go wrong...

[Bob Kane]

Not being able to handle a 'complex' system just means that it wasn't scoped properly at the start and that is Telent2's fault as far as I can see.

Remember this? - How to Plan a Computer Disaster

Don't change or simplify your business to fit a standard package but rather commission custom software or (best) modify an existing package extensively.

In the old days our computer systems were written from scratch and tailored to the customer.
Then packaged software became available.
Everyone bought a package and then modified it extensively to suit their needs - only to find the more they modified, the bigger the mess became.
We have now reached the stage where we buy packaged software and don't modify it - we change our company to fit the package.
Quite an interesting evolution, don't you think?

[Perry]

What perplexes me about all this is that crunching complexity is
a computer's forte. It's what they do best. Back in those dim,
distant, dark nights when I slaved away at some basic program-
ming in to the wee small hours, I could spend hours running
a routine against a large database in a gut-grinding effort to
have the routine work against every record in the database
and every conditional option within the flat file database fields.

Call them bugs or syntax errors or whatever, it was necessary
to keep at it until it worked. And only when it worked by more
and more testing, was it actually used.

Talent4 monumental muck ups have only themselves to blame.

[Bob Kane]

You've almost there, Perry, in understanding what's happening.
Let's just copy and paste a bit from your reply:

Back in those dim,
distant, dark nights when I slaved away at some basic program-
ming in to the wee small hours, I could spend hours running
a routine against a large database in a gut-grinding effort to
have the routine work against every record in the database
and every conditional option within the flat file database fields.

<snipped>.. it was necessary to keep at it until it worked.

In a small program there might be 50 conditional statements which would take a small time to test.
A larger program might have 500 conditional statements - and take a lot longer to test.
You get the picture?
The speed of the computer doesn't matter - the number of conditional statements (and alternative paths) pushes the development (and testing) time out.
Try thinking about 500,000 conditional statements.
And when you alter/fix one, you discover a previous one is now causing errors.
It sounds like the teachers have many unique conditions involved in their pay calculations.
And they wanted them all working on day one.
And a self-imposed deadline.
Switching off the old working payroll system can't be blamed on Talent2.
That was a Education Dept decision.
A rather poor one as it has turned out.

[Wayne]

I have my doubts that the teachers contract has 500,000 variables - it just isn't that complex. Seems even the simple stuff is missing - paying teachers who don't work there anymore, pay an out of pocket expense that doesn't exist (to a teacher in another school out of your budget), not paying teachers who started this year.

[Perry]

You've almost there, Perry, in understanding what's happening. In a small program
there might be 50 conditional statements which would take a small time to test.
A larger program might have 500 conditional statements - and take a lot longer
to test. You get the picture? The speed of the computer doesn't matter - the
number of conditional statements (and alternative paths) pushes the development
(and testing) time out. Try thinking about 500,000 conditional statements.

I agree that CPU speed does not matter, in this case. However, conditional
instructions are not that hard to write, once one has the knack of them.

My inclination is towards a comment made by an earlier poster: the project
was not properly scoped. Or perhaps there was no non-negotiable cut-off
date for requirements?

Nothing kills a budget or a vexes a programmer in extremis, more than having
the requirements changed after scripting has started. I dimly recall that the
success of the Wanganui Police Computer was partly attributed to the cut-
off date for requirements being absolutely and rigidly enforced.

[Bob Kane]

Who should we sue?

I had to laugh today:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10867935

PPTA could not confirm who the action would be taken against - the Education Ministry, Australian company Talent2, or both.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8352938/Legal-action-launched-over-Novopay

"It is an unusual situation in that traditionally any action would be taken against a school's board as the employer, but in this case the boards are just as frustrated with Novopay as their staff,'' Roberts said.

The teachers might have to sue their own school boards!

[Wayne]

the boards and school admin (admin staff and Principal) are piggy in the middle but no teacher blames them. Many Principals and admin staff are getting mucked around with pays also.

[Perry]

School Admin Staff Resigning Over Novopay
27 Feb 2013

School admin staff are resigning due to stress over the Novopay pay
system as secondary teachers prepare to take legal action. A survey of
1155 school principals shows 23 staff have resigned since the
error-prone pay system was introduced, while many more are considering
following them, Principals Federation president Philip Harding says.
"This is a distressing finding," Mr Harding said.

"We can reasonably assume that our survey respondents are
representative of all schools. We can therefore extrapolate from the
data that there could be as many as 50 resignations across the country
and many more at breaking point." The survey also showed the
proportion of schools experiencing issues had gone up from 86 percent
in October to 96 percent.

[Learning]

School Admin Staff Resigning Over Novopay
27 Feb 2013

As I said in an earlier post, our school board has taken the decision to take money from the classroom resources budget to pay our principal and admin clerk for a small portion of the overtime they have been putting in because of this problem. Similar things will be happening in a thousand or more schools over the country. Money going over stressed staff that should be spent on books and classroom computers.

Don't be fooled people, it's our kids education that is suffering because of this cock-up!

[Perry]

. . certainly is wont be those behind the idea,
be they politicians or bureaucrats or Talent4 . . .