So Key is standing by Parata...

[Wayne]

Saw her interview on Q&A last weekend, though, and she acquitted herself pretty well I thought. Focusing on 'helping the kids' rather than closing schools etc is a better strategy for an election year.

Great to see that she is learning - she needed to!

[Learning]

Great to see that she is learning - ...

I deny any resemblance.

[Perry]

Deny? Or neither confirm nor deny?

[Bob Kane]

So when an employment contract is negotiated the parties should look at the future possibility that the terms may be too complicated for a new payroll system designed to handle it?

That's one of the lessons from this, isn't it?
A complicated system (payroll or anything else) increases the risk of errors. It also increases the cost. Why would anyone want that? Smart businessmen and accountants have known this for over 100 years so no-one should be surprised at this.
Would any private company introduce allowances like the teachers have?

[Bob Kane]

I'm sure if it were possible then Mr Joyce would be on it.
Poorly drafted contract maybe?

I think so.
However, Novopay is the only available payroll system for the teachers at the moment.
If the ministry tried to sue Talent2 then Talent2 could pull the plug and walk out.
It could take 3-4 years to get a replacement system up and running.
Imagine no teachers being paid for 3 years.
When the ministry told Datacom to decommission the old payroll system, boy, that limited the options for the ministry. Big mistake, aye?

[Perry]

And, as has been observed before, an inexcusable and gross breach of fundamental IT precepts:
never ever turn off the old system until the new one is fully bedded in and working as expected.
(or as close to working as expected as is reasonable)

[Wayne]

That's one of the lessons from this, isn't it?
A complicated system (payroll or anything else) increases the risk of errors. It also increases the cost. Why would anyone want that? Smart businessmen and accountants have known this for over 100 years so no-one should be surprised at this.
Would any private company introduce allowances like the teachers have?

Teachers have had that contract for years and years and all has been fine.
When I worked for the NZPO we had allowances for just about everything - and we got paid right every time.
Now the new system can't get it right - progress eh!
And it isn't just allowances - people are NOT GETTING PAID AT ALL.
Unless you make the contract so simple that you do it for free it is hard to counter.

[Wayne]

If the ministry tried to sue Talent2 then Talent2 could pull the plug and walk out.

Probably at huge cost to them - financially and reputational damage.

[Perry]

To whom? Talentless Too?
The muck up ministry?

[Wayne]

To whom? Talentless Too?
The muck up ministry?

Talent2 - I doubt they can just walk away, the contract wouldn't be that bad surely.
If it was it would be really easy to hold the user (MOE) to ransom.

[Perry]

Does anyone recall the details of
the ending of the INCIS debacle?
Wasn't the gummint going to
sue the socks off IBM, at first?

[artemis]

Does anyone recall the details of the ending of the INCIS debacle? Wasn't the gummint going to sue the socks off IBM, at first?

Don't recall, sorry, but I knew a couple of people who worked on the Police side. Their opinion was, IIRC, that some key aspects were world leading, well ahead of their time, potentially hugely valuable crime fighting aids, but the software was not able to deliver at that point. Unfortunately, it happens, especially where specifications are not completely pinned down at the RFI and selection stages. And requirements often change during specification and development for all sorts of reasons, particularly for large and complex implementations. Could be legislation changes in the public sector, changes in business processes, mistakes or omissions in the business requirements (common), changes in management with different ideas, delays caused by changes in midstream leading to budget overruns. And so on.

I would suggest that there will always be issues on all sides, and that does appear to be the case with Novopay from what I have read.

The vendor does of course have obligations, but management of the contract is the responsibility of the client. Just sayin'.

[Winston001]

Does anyone recall the details of
the ending of the INCIS debacle?
Wasn't the gummint going to
sue the socks off IBM, at first?

IBM paid the govt so IBM could get out of the contract. Big loss for IBM.

[Bob Kane]

Novopay bill up to $33m, expected to rise further

http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/novopay-bill-up-33m-expected-rise-further-5864471

Here's a bit that sounds familiar:

Other changes planned for the next six months include making the payroll system simpler and improving the readability of payslips and admin reports, Mr Joyce says.

[Bob Kane]

It's doomed.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/9832337/Novopay-to-get-10m-fix

Don Christie, co-chairman of information technology industry body NZRise, said a "much overlooked" failing of Novopay was it was based on an Oracle Forms technology, created in the 1990s, that was "never going to be flexible or modern enough for a complex, distributed, process that was due to stay in use past 2020".
"You wouldn't get Google or Facebook building their business on that."
Mr Christie, who is also chief executive of Wellington technology company Catalyst IT, applauded "the good and hard work the teams have put it to get Novopay to the state it is in now", but said his advice would be to move on.
"I understand that is not easy."

When will Novopay be put down?