Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B

Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by wahern on Thursday March 01, 2018 @05:06PM (#16496832)

Apropos HN, he then says,

  officials set out to fix Indiana's poorly-performing
  welfare system by inserting an untested, theoretical
  experiment, and substitute personal caseworkers with
  computers and phone calls ("remote eligibility"). This
  is now admitted to be an error, and there is nothing in
  this case, or the Court's power, that can be done to
  correct it, or remedy the lost taxpayer money or
  personal suffering of needy Hoosiers.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by toomanybeersies on Thursday March 01, 2018 @05:58PM (#16497193)

ML based welfare eligibility screening seems a few short steps from Kafka. I'm not sure if that's what they were doing, but it seems like something that somebody would think is a great idea.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by samstave on Thursday March 01, 2018 @06:04PM (#16497231)

The ONLY person who would think all that is a good idea are the engineers who were able to update their linkedin with "implemented ML based solution to replace human resources with computer resources to streamline the welfare system for the state of X"

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by fphhotchips on Thursday March 01, 2018 @08:02PM (#16497954)

That's not at all true. The only engineers who would think all that is a good idea are those who could update their LinkedIn. The salespeople and non-technical leadership though? They're going to love the idea of ML (read: magic) based solutions to replace human resources with computer resources to streamline their welfare systems.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by theossuary on Thursday March 01, 2018 @06:15PM (#16497304)

I don't think any engineer would consider that a good idea. But if somebody tells you that's what you're working on for the next few years, make lemonade I guess.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by wolco on Thursday March 01, 2018 @10:11PM (#16498664)

Still sounds like fun to build.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by paulie_a on Thursday March 01, 2018 @07:33PM (#16497764)

LinkedIn is basically the epitome of HR pointlessness. so that would probably be a bullet point to not include

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by Spooky23 on Thursday March 01, 2018 @11:24PM (#16499002)

States were successful in moving Medicaid enrollment to outsourced providers. THis was probably seen as building on that theme.

I think IBM bought an Irish company that did similar work in the UK, so it probably looked achievable, and a potential Cash cow for other states. (Accenture was able to sell child welfare solutions at great profit in the 90s) Its a great business as it generates alotmof complimentary sales and services.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by jessaustin on Friday March 02, 2018 @09:56AM (#16501821)

Accenture was able to sell child welfare solutions at great profit in the 90s

In the 90s that would have been Andersen Consulting rather than Accenture. Although having worked with them at the time and found them worse in every way than IBM is described in this thread, I wouldn't be surprised to learn they profited at the expense of poor children.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by nraynaud on Thursday March 01, 2018 @11:23PM (#16498997)

In France a few years ago I registered for unemployment benefits (that was quite a quest), I received a letter from the electricity utility telling me that I qualified for a reduced price. Later when I found a job, they put back the normal price.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by gowld on Thursday March 01, 2018 @11:17PM (#16498971)

The quoted paragraph isn't ML, it's telecommunications.

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Re:Canada to Scrap IBM Payroll Plan Gone Awry Costing $1B by Spooky23 on Thursday March 01, 2018 @11:20PM (#16498981)

I've worked in the public sector and in support of a large complex social services system at a very large scale.

It's a frustrating place to be put in charge of for a political appointee charged with reform, usually without alot of knowledge, or with a idealogical bent fueled by conservative dogma in this case.

IGS is a shitshow, but outsourcing stuff like this is ridiculously dumb. IBM was in a position where failure was the only option, and anyone attempting to do this will fail. IBM underestimated the difficulty of the task, probably because the customer had zero clue.

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