Irish Water

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

The clusterfu*k is unjustified, except by idiots that don't know anything about setting up large enterprises with the appropriate systems.

My first reaction when I saw the combination of Accenture, IBM & Oracle was that they've done well to keep it under 50m (which was amount first reported).



There is no need for this witch hunt, a point that I've been trying to explain.



Could have fooled me.



That I have to disagree with. Irish water have handled it as well as could be expected given the amount of empty vessels banging on about things they don't understand. Their first reaction, to check with the suppliers were they able to give out financial information about the deal, was absolutely correct.

These deals often have non disclosure clauses so to immediately dump the information into the public domain is not a viable option. It's bad enough that the general public don't understand this and refuse to listen to any explanation that isn't confirming that they were screwed over, but it's far worse that people like Shane Ross who should know how these kinds of contracts work want them to do something that could easily have landed them in court for breach of contract.



Irish water did, they told the relevant departments how much they thought it was going to take within the confines of the agreements they had to make. After that it's the governments, who gave them their mandate and funding, ball to carry. There's not a lot more that they could have done in the circumstances.

As for the government there's a serious dose of posterior covering going on. Someone in the departments dropped the ball, be it the ministers (who either didn't listen, have forgotten or are running for cover) or the civil servants (who either didn't make sure their bosses understood what was going on or didn't tell them) messed up.

The questions I'd be asking is who leaked this and what axe do they have to grind because the mischaracterisation of an IT capital spend as consultancy fees - which implies that it's an ongoing spend rather than a one off cost - is borderlineline criminal.

Your a lone voice on this one..the td's cant even agree that they knew about this while Enda kenny claims he knew about the budget but Phil hogan didnt etc..etc.

Its the very definition of a clusterfu*k. And if there is no need for this witchhunt why hasnt it been snuffed out instead of wasting peoples time?

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

Why are they being paid to develop IT operating procedures when one could presume the existing procedures in BG could be used or built upon.
There is no mention of actual software or hardware, but operating procedures.

And as for developing "target operating model" we are in the realm of waffle.
Again it is policies and action plans.
Does BG not have any of these recruitment or training systems or any people in house that could be temporarily assigned to work on them.

And I can't wait to see how much they are charging for the development of "guiding principles".

At least IBM seem to be developing, configuring and installing the IT infrastructure, whereas Accenture appears to be just high on waffle provision.

What's to say that the existing procedures etc are up to scratch? Given the complaints about hiring practices etc in public organisations, they would seem to be out of date.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

Your a lone voice on this one..the td's cant even agree that they knew about this while Enda kenny claims he knew about the budget but Phile hogan didnt etc..etc.

Its the very definition of a clusterfu*k.

I didn't say it wasn't a clusterfu*k, I said it was unjustified.

DuckHook wrote: »

Your a lone voice on this one..the td's cant even agree that they knew about this while Enda kenny claims he knew about the budget but Phile hogan didnt etc..etc.

Enda knew, Phil's department was told but phil didn't know, schoolteachers tds are making noise about things they know absolutely nothing about and there's a belief that old system can be lashed together to create an enterprise utilities system capable of providing services to 1.8m or more customers.

As K in Men In Black said: "People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it".

jmayo

antoobrien wrote: »

What's to say that the existing procedures etc are up to scratch? Given the complaints about hiring practices etc in public organisations, they would seem to be out of date.

Are they 17 odd million out of date ?
You and I both know that if that article is anyway correct then a lot of what Accenture is doing is pure waffle and should be replicatable in some form from the parent company.
After all remember the selling point about leveraging BG capabilities.

Accenture don't appear to be actually installing any actual infrastructure, but formulating policies, processes and procedures.
You appear pretty clued in so I guess you have seen this scenario before where the place is flooded with delivery managers, project managers, etc and at the end of the day it is a few guys actually doing the bloody work.

melekalikimaka

DuckHook wrote: »

This is bs..pure and simple any off the shelf database that cant handle 1.8 million entries went out of date in the late 70's and was more commonly known as a filing cabinet.

The amount of products on the market that can do this is massive.

you are wrong and i assume you do not work, or ever have within the utility industry, so please stop post inaccurate information

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

Since you know so much about the systems involved, perhaps you'd like to tell us what the hardware & software stack looks like and how many servers and what concepts will be involved in provisioning 1.8m+ accounts.

I will wait for the detailed report from irish water.

DuckHook

melekalikimaka wrote: »

you are wrong and i assume you do not work, or ever have within the utility industry, so please stop post inaccurate information

What information is wrong, that any bog standard database can handle 1.8 million customer entries easily or that there are a plethora of such products available?

melekalikimaka

DuckHook wrote: »

What information is wrong, that any bog standard database can handle 1.8 million customer entries easily

no it can't

Floppybits

jmayo wrote: »

Are they 17 odd million out of date ?
You and I both know that if that article is anyway correct then a lot of what Accenture is doing is pure waffle and should be replicatable in some form from the parent company.
After all remember the selling point about leveraging BG capabilities.

Accenture don't appear to be actually installing any actual infrastructure, but formulating policies, processes and procedures.
You appear pretty clued in so I guess you have seen this scenario before where the place is flooded with delivery managers, project managers, etc and at the end of the day it is a few guys actually doing the bloody work.

For Accenture I will accept that this is what they are doing is waffle and document creation, having being involved with another company similar to Accenture which I wont name, these companies can cause more problems than they solve.

For IBM and Oracle I would accept the monies that were paid to these companies, as I said could it have been done cheaper probably but all that would have happened was the other company hired would have had to purchase equipment and would have probably subcontracted out to IBM and Oracle.

As for the how this has been handled it has been a clusterfook from the beginning. Once consultants is mentioned in this country everyone thinks rip off and rightly so but in this case I do feel the money paid out is justified as it seems it was spent on setting up the IT infrastructure of the company. Would people have been so wound up if the headline in the meda was 50 million spent on setting up IW IT infrastructure? The press have done a good job of whipping up a frenzy where there shouldnt be.

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

Are they 17 odd million out of date ?
You and I both know that if that article is anyway correct then a lot of what Accenture is doing is pure waffle and should be replicatable in some form from the parent company.
After all remember the selling point about leveraging BG capabilities.

Accenture don't appear to be actually installing any actual infrastructure, but formulating policies, processes and procedures.

As a former BG customer, I know there's a lot of stuff that they need to do better. I had awful hassle trying to close an electricity account because I was a tenant. It seemed that they were going out of their way to keep me responsible for paying a bill on a premises that I was not longer renting.

Besides, with a clean slate I'd spend money reviewing all the procedures, processes and practices that we had to make sure that they were all up to date. There will be some items that won't apply at all, some that will have to be updated and some that will have to be made up from scratch.

I know that's not €17m worth of work, but then Accenture won three contracts to supply services to Irish Water (it was in the indo during the week, the article is not online). There's more ot what they are being paid than is in the irish times article.

jmayo wrote: »

You appear pretty clued in so I guess you have seen this scenario before where the place is flooded with delivery managers, project managers, etc and at the end of the day it is a few guys actually doing the bloody work.

I worked with a company that did big deals and had to talk to the guys that go onsite a lot, so I have a good idea of the amount of faffing about that goes on.

It strikes me though that here's something missing from the descriptions of the IT work: data migration. This is usually done by the systems integrations (not clear if it's IBM or Accenture here as both provide this service, but since IBM are working with Oracle software I'd image it's them). Data migration should be needed as there are a lot of customers that the 34 local authorities for water services and there'd need to be at least some historical data provided. That could mean 34 different data formats - a potentially costly exercise.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

I will wait for the detailed report from irish water.

Thank's for clarifying that you've absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

Thank's for clarifying that you've absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Thanks for being so incredibly arrogant you felt the need to post this, have a nice day.

BionicRasher

antoobrien wrote: »

It strikes me though that here's something missing from the descriptions of the IT work: data migration. This is usually done by the systems integrations (not clear if it's IBM or Accenture here as both provide this service, but since IBM are working with Oracle software I'd image it's them). Data migration should be needed as there are a lot of customers that the 34 local authorities for water services and there'd need to be at least some historical data provided. That could mean 34 different data formats - a potentially costly exercise.

I would hope that if IBM and Oracle are building a system to cater for customer accounts and billing then the price they quoted includes everything from data migration to validation - otherwise its a half baked attempt at a system install. Whats the point in getting some company to build you a system if they cant build to whole thing. €44M to IBM seems a bit OTT to me and I would also think that there will be additional yearly maintenance and support costs in the region of 15% on top of this. There are also going to be in house people working on this so I am not sure that figure is included either which may bump this all up another few million.

Seems a bit of a farce really to me and I would hope they are made to come clean with a full breakdown of expenditure like any normal project would have to disclose.

melekalikimaka

DuckHook wrote: »

Thanks for being so incredibly arrogant you felt the need to post this, have a nice day.

You are making unsubstantiated claims and flooding the thread with misinformation. Have a nice day

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

Thanks for being so incredibly arrogant you felt the need to post this, have a nice day.

Still think that any old DB can be used, despite people that actually know IT telling you to cop on? That's arrogant.

Besides here's what the people that know what systems needed to be set up have to say on the matter:

"In the main this required us to specify and implement 5 major utility information systems to set up Irish Water: Customer care and billing systems, Work and asset management system, Financial system, Procurement system and Capital Project Management systems," Mr Tierney told the committee.

All of these were based on existing Bord Gais systems but the specification had to reflect the needs of a water utility as distinct from an energy utility and meet the needs of an organisation approximately 3 times larger than Bord Gais today.

http://www.independent.ie/blog/irish-water-total-set-up-costs-will-be-180m-29916070.html

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

Still think that any old DB can be used, despite people that actually know IT telling you to cop on? That's arrogant.

Besides here's what the people that know what systems needed to be set up have to say on the matter:



http://www.independent.ie/blog/irish-water-total-set-up-costs-will-be-180m-29916070.html

I gave those posts the attention they deserved.

What does that tell us that hasnt been said already?

"Based on the delivery of the full scope of work we expect the final cost of the work packages to be IBM €44.8 million, Accenture €17.2 million, Ernst & Young €4.6 million and KPMG €2.2 million," the committee heard.

best of luck, nothing to see here its all a storm in a teacup ah sure you plebs wouldnt understand anyway.

antoobrien

tui0hcg wrote: »

I would hope that if IBM and Oracle are building a system to cater for customer accounts and billing then the price they quoted includes everything from data migration to validation - otherwise its a half baked attempt at a system install. Whats the point in getting some company to build you a system if they cant build to whole thing.

As I already said it should included and should be covered by the SI, but there is no mention of it.

tui0hcg wrote: »

€44M to IBM seems a bit OTT to me

It's not. Here's what I said earlier:

antoobrien wrote: »

I was involved in an RFP for an enterprise system of similar size but lower complexity (it was a single "application", IBM are setting up several including but not limited to finance, human resources and regulatory affairs) three years ago. The estimated cost for one set of hardware and software (an environment) was about approx €8m, without any other work (i.e. just to ship the hardware and software to the customer).

Sounds like IBM are screwing Irish Water doesn't it? What if I said that they were going to have to buy a minimum of three such environments - one main (production) environment, one live backup and at least one testing environment (to try to minimise disruption when maintaining the software, though this doesn't always go to plan as any Ulsterbank Customer can attest). Depending on the nature of the business there is often could be a 4th or even a 5th environment for development of new features that are rolled out to customers, but I'll assume 3 environments.

So going on three year old figures for a similar sized system, we're talking something in the range of €20m-€25m, just for delivery of the CC&B system. They're also delivering finance (i.e accounting), human resources and regulatory affairs, asset management and capital expenditure systems.

There will be some savings on common hardware, but the costs should be well north of the total 61m spend between IBM & Accenture.

tui0hcg wrote: »

and I would also think that there will be additional yearly maintenance and support costs in the region of 15% on top of this. There are also going to be in house people working on this so I am not sure that figure is included either which may bump this all up another few million.

There will be, as there already was for the existing Bord Gais systems.

tui0hcg wrote: »

Seems a bit of a farce really to me and I would hope they are made to come clean with a full breakdown of expenditure like any normal project would have to disclose.

Sorry but most companies that publish their accounts are not required publish the kind of detailed information that is being demanded of Irish Water, they usually only have to publish headline figures in their accounts. It's only when they get questions from investors on amounts deemed unusual that they'll give out that kind of information and that is often given privately.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, these payments are only unusual because in the context of enterprise IT they are small.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

I gave those posts the attention they deserved.

What does that tell us that hasnt been said already?

This:

All of these were based on existing Bord Gais systems but the specification had to reflect the needs of a water utility as distinct from an energy utility and meet the needs of an organisation approximately 3 times larger than Bord Gais today.

That spending, cheap at twice the price. But then with this attitude we can forget about any kind of reality invading the situation.

DuckHook wrote: »

best of luck, nothing to see here its all a storm in a teacup ah sure you plebs wouldnt understand anyway.

creedp

antoobrien wrote: »

That spending, cheap at twice the price. But then with this attitude we can forget about any kind of reality invading the situation.

No doubt about there's one category of public servants well entitled to their €7,000 annual bonus.

BionicRasher

antoobrien wrote: »

It's not. Here's what I said earlier:

I have read the thread so I do recall your posts

I too have worked (and am working on) Enterprise wide projects and I can tell you they are coming in well under that figure. An enterprise wide system I have worked on including Hardware, Software, License, Professional Services and full Validation cost in the region of €8 million to complete from start to finish. It’s a huge system used in a multinational company and is also very intricate and includes a very complex database

I realize IBM may be providing more than just an application but come on it’s a bit OTT

antoobrien

creedp wrote: »

No doubt about there's one category of public servants well entitled to their €7,000 annual bonus.

Personally I'd be more worried about how/why the taxpayer are putting €26m into an update of the National Gallery.

antoobrien

tui0hcg wrote: »

I too have worked (and am working on) Enterprise wide projects and I can tell you they are coming in well under that figure. An enterprise wide system I have worked on including Hardware, Software, License, Professional Services and full Validation cost in the region of €8 million to complete from start to finish. It’s a huge system used in a multinational company and is also very intricate and includes a very complex database

I realize IBM may be providing more than just an application but come on it’s a bit OTT

That's fair but remember that at least part of this system will be B2C (online billing), which changes the dynamics of the processing requirements. The B2C portions of the IW system will need the five nines and have to provide for more concurrent users than your typical (internal) enterprise application. Oracle & IBM use several different pricing metrics so depending on the technologies used, the more computing power required, the more it's going to cost.

I can't remember if it was 2m or 4m accounts that the system I described earlier was spec'ed for but it would have a higher transactional rate than a utilities system. Sorry but I can see where IBM are getting the spend from.

jmayo

antoobrien wrote: »

As a former BG customer, I know there's a lot of stuff that they need to do better. I had awful hassle trying to close an electricity account because I was a tenant. It seemed that they were going out of their way to keep me responsible for paying a bill on a premises that I was not longer renting.

I don't think that scenario is limited to BG.
Ever dealt with any of our telecoms companies or tv companies ?

antoobrien wrote: »

Besides, with a clean slate I'd spend money reviewing all the procedures, processes and practices that we had to make sure that they were all up to date. There will be some items that won't apply at all, some that will have to be updated and some that will have to be made up from scratch.

I know that's not €17m worth of work, but then Accenture won three contracts to supply services to Irish Water (it was in the indo during the week, the article is not online). There's more ot what they are being paid than is in the irish times article.

And do any of the contracts involve actual code development, IT systems development or hardware ?
Because 17 million for writing reports coming up with policies and procedures which are probably off a template used elsewhere seems a bit of a joke.

antoobrien wrote: »

I worked with a company that did big deals and had to talk to the guys that go onsite a lot, so I have a good idea of the amount of faffing about that goes on.

It strikes me though that here's something missing from the descriptions of the IT work: data migration. This is usually done by the systems integrations (not clear if it's IBM or Accenture here as both provide this service, but since IBM are working with Oracle software I'd image it's them). Data migration should be needed as there are a lot of customers that the 34 local authorities for water services and there'd need to be at least some historical data provided. That could mean 34 different data formats - a potentially costly exercise.

And what are the internal staff going to be doing ?
I presume IW are hiring internal IT staff ?
Might send in me CV.
Look if you can't beat them join them and maybe I might get the old 7k bonus.

Surely some of that can be done by internal staff and often companies can spec they need the data in some kind of recognisable cleaned up format.

DuckHook wrote: »

"Based on the delivery of the full scope of work we expect the final cost of the work packages to be IBM €44.8 million, Accenture €17.2 million, Ernst & Young €4.6 million and KPMG €2.2 million," the committee heard.

eh what are Ernst and KPMG providing ?
I wonder did poor old Deloitte lose out because of Anglo. :rolleyes:

antoobrien wrote: »

Sorry but most companies that publish their accounts are not required publish the kind of detailed information that is being demanded of Irish Water, they usually only have to publish headline figures in their accounts. It's only when they get questions from investors on amounts deemed unusual that they'll give out that kind of information and that is often given privately.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, these payments are only unusual because in the context of enterprise IT they are small.

And in those cases the taxpayer, who is currently under major pressure and has a history of being scrwed over on state owned projects, is not the ones footing the bill.

People are complaining that politicans are asking questions and that the media is runnign stories on the spend.

Rather than people complaining about this they should be thankful.
Maybe if this level of debate was run before then we might not have spent half the money wasted on such shyte as PPARS, electronic voting, fictitious stadiums or a few more projects like Luas/metro north or Ringsend incinerator that while useful involved a huge wastage of public funds.

antoobrien wrote: »

Personally I'd be more worried about how/why the taxpayer are putting €26m into an update of the National Gallery.

Maybe someone is writing them an operations policy document.

BTW is it too late to get onto Irish Water with proposal to use Access 95 and VB6 as the billing system.
I am willing to do it for a cheap 5 mill.

weary1

jmayo wrote: »

BTW is it too late to get onto Irish Water with proposal to use Access 95 and VB6 as the billing system.
I am willing to do it for a cheap 5 mill.

If its Accenture that are doing the coding lets hope they don't use Java applets on your PC. This was what the ROS (revenue online) system used - Accenture being chief consultants - , caused me days recovering from Java vulnerabilities. No other European government requires you Java to have applets on your PC.

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

I don't think that scenario is limited to BG.
Ever dealt with any of our telecoms companies or tv companies ?

Yes I have, far easier to get out of an account than BG.

jmayo wrote: »

And do any of the contracts involve actual code development, IT systems development or hardware ?
Because 17 million for writing reports coming up with policies and procedures which are probably off a template used elsewhere seems a bit of a joke.

I know the scope is more than just report writing, but I can't find the article online. I hope my parents haven't done their recycling yet.

jmayo wrote: »

And what are the internal staff going to be doing ?
I presume IW are hiring internal IT staff ?

As I said before data migration is usually done by the SI. Internal IT staff will look after the running of the system.

jmayo wrote: »

Might send in me CV.
Look if you can't beat them join them and maybe I might get the old 7k bonus.

jmayo wrote: »

Surely some of that can be done by internal staff and often companies can spec they need the data in some kind of recognisable cleaned up format.

That sounds like somebody who has never had to do it. It's a royal pain when you know everything and the newly hired internal staff won't/

jmayo wrote: »

eh what are Ernst and KPMG providing ?
I wonder did poor old Deloitte lose out because of Anglo. :rolleyes:

You'll have to find a business analyst to ask that

jmayo wrote: »

And in those cases the taxpayer, who is currently under major pressure and has a history of being scrwed over on state owned projects, is not the ones footing the bill.

People are complaining that politicans are asking questions and that the media is runnign stories on the spend.

That's no excuse for the illiterate bull that most people on here are contributing.

jmayo wrote: »

Rather than people complaining about this they should be thankful.

Be thankful for what? An IT infrastructure spend that is way below what it should be is getting labelled as an ongoing consultancy cost?

Sorry but no, that's nothing to be thankful about.

jmayo wrote: »

Maybe if this level of debate was run before then we might not have spent half the money wasted on such shyte as PPARS, electronic voting, fictitious stadiums or a few more projects like Luas/metro north or Ringsend incinerator that while useful involved a huge wastage of public funds.

Metro north the biggest, most politically contrived, waste of money ever conceived by the state. It's only a runner because it's going through some of the best known socially deprived areas in the country. If the price of PPARS is metro north going head, then money well spent.

jmayo wrote: »

BTW is it too late to get onto Irish Water with proposal to use Access 95 and VB6 as the billing system.
I am willing to do it for a cheap 5 mill.

Thank <insert name of deity> it is.

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

I wonder did poor old Deloitte lose out because of Anglo. :rolleyes:

Deloitte are getting €472k.

antoobrien

The document is available on the Irish water Website.

Payments to IBM (to total 44.8m):
Lot 1: Operating Model - Delivery of Customer Capability

The scope of work to be carried out by the winning tenderer includes the design, delivery and integration of all roles, business processes, systems and data required to enable this Customer Capability and to provide an integrated framework of:

1. Customer registration tools;
2. Web-based customer self service;
3. Call centre operations;
4. Complaint module;
5. Customer billing;
6. and Meter Data Management

These capabilities were to be based on the Oracle Customer Care and Billing platform, which is the current platform used by Bord Gais.

Lot 2: Operating Model - Delivery of Work & Asset Management Capability

The overall purpose of this function is to deliver an integrated framework of asset planning, operations, and capital delivery to efficiently manage water and waste water infrastructure.

A primary objective of Lot 2 is to ensure that the business has the ability to optimise work programmes such that investment returns are maximised and asset risks minimised, taking into account resourcing constraints. Established BGE capabilities based on the Maximo, Click and Syclo systems will be leveraged. The roles and business processes delivered will be comprehensive and will cover all Work and Asset Management areas – both systems related and non-systems related.

Lot 3: Operating Model – Delivery of Support Services Capability

Lot 3 must provide an integrated framework and governance model for all Irish Water support services including Finance, Human Resources, Corporate Services, Regulatory Affairs, Commercial, HSQE and IT. The scope of Lot 3 also includes consideration and management of all support services impacts arising from regionalisation and shared services models.

Key systems deliverables will be the implementation of Oracle eBusiness (release 12), Hyperion, and Core HR for Irish Water. The roles and business processes delivered will be comprehensive and cover all support services areas, both systems related and non-systems related.

antoobrien

The document is available on the Irish water Website.

Payments to Accenture (to total 17.2m):

Lot 4: Integrated Programme Management of Business Capability Establishment projects and management of specialist vendors contracted by BGE

Lot 4 provides integrated Programme Management across the Business Capability development sub-programme, and will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of an integrated operating model and enabling solution. Specifically, Lot 4 will oversee the Customer, Work and Asset Management and Support Services capability development and IT infrastructure projects.

The Integrated Programme Management of Business Capability focuses on providing support in seven key areas throughout the different phases of the Programme:

• Delivery Management – Consolidating and managing an integrated business capability programme plan in conjunction with all projects and driving delivery against the plan
• Business Capability Development – Oversight of end to end business capability development to ensure an integrated operating and process model is delivered across the Customer, WAM and Support Service projects which is aligned to the Target Operating Model developed during the TOM phase
• Solution Architecture - Oversight of end to end solution design and implementation including integration to enable the business capability across the Customer, WAM and Support Service projects
• Test Management – Leadership of the solution testing approach and plan across the business capability and Infrastructure programme to ensure aligned, efficient and complete testing of the solution and the readiness of the organisation and its partners to run and support the solution Data Architecture
• Data Architecture – Development of data architecture competency and oversight of data architecture and ensuring the use of consistent meta data and model across workstreams for the business capability projects
• Infrastructure Architecture – Oversight of the underlying Technical Infrastructure delivered across Customer, WAM and Support services to ensure appropriate, consistent, robust Infrastructure solutions implemented
• Security Architecture – Ensure appropriate security in place in the delivered solutions and to ensure the solution aligns with agreed Information Security and Data Protection principles

Lot 5: Delivery of Organisation Design and Development

Lot 5 comprises the design and development of the new Irish Water organisation structure together with the development of the Target Operating Model for Irish Water

The key deliverables of the 4 workstreams which comprise the Organisation Design and Development services are Organisation Design, Talent Management, Recruitment & Transition & Integration.

The approach for the Target Operating Model is outlined below which covers an 8 week period of activity that is required to design and develop the Target Operating Model for Irish Water

• Development of the Target Operating Model Guiding Principles
• Function Definitions for all Business Capabilities and accompanying RACI for Critical Activities
• Key Cross Functional Scenarios to demonstrate the interaction between the functions to achieve critical business outcomes, including:
  - New Connections & Customer Take On
  - Domestic Meter Rollout Programme
  - Customer Contact Management
  - Customer Complaints Management
  - Capital Programme Delivery
  - Planned Maintenance
  - Others as required to support functional discussions within the project team
• Initial Inventory of all Business Processes and KPIs from Levels 1 to 3
• Completed Business Processes from Levels 1 to 3 for Customer Registration, Complaints Management, Support Services and Meter Rollout processes
• Irish Water Guiding Principles
• Remaining and revised Priority Level 1 to 3 Processes
• Organisation Design to Level 3
• Supporting Governance Model

Lot 8: Central Programme Management Office Support

Lot 8 extends to the provision of central programme management office (PMO) services to deliver and integrate PMO activities across the entire Irish Water Programme. This includes provision of PMO services to support the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government (DCELG) in its programme and work-streams.

In delivering central PMO services, Lot 8 will maintain an overview of all projects and sub-programmes to ensure that all plans, dependencies, risks, issues and project activities are effectively aligned. Lot 8 will also provide consolidated programme reporting and will take the lead role in the delivery of Change Management across the programme, incorporating Stakeholder Management, Communications and Business Readiness.

As part of the Irish Water establishment Programme, Lot 8 also provides Programme Management activities to support DECLG’s Water Sector Reform Programme (WSRP) and work-streams including the Policy and Legal Cluster, the Organisation Model Cluster and the Sustainable Funding Cluster with the following activities:

• Governance
• Planning
• Reporting
• Risks & Issues
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Communications

antoobrien

The document is available on the Irish water Website.

Payments to Ernst & Young (4.6m):

Lot 6: Integrated Programme Management and Resourcing Support for Company and Organisation Establishment projects

Lot 6 is the integrated programme management and resourcing support for the Company Establishment and Organisation Establishment sub-programmes.

The overall purpose of Lot 6 is to manage the projects within the Company and Organisation Establishment sub-programmes to ensure the delivery of all milestones on schedule. The projects within scope are Finance, Governance and Regulation, Commercial & SLA, Customer Engagement & Brand Development, Facilities, Organisation Design and Development, Pensions, and Employee Relations. Lot 6 also encompasses the project management of any specialist vendors contracted by BGE to support these projects. There is an additional option, at Bord Gais’s sole discretion, for Lot 6 to provide direct resourcing support for the projects within scope.

In delivering programme management services for Company and Organisation Establishment, Lot 6 will:

• Work with BGE to produce a Project Design and Definition Document (“PDD”) for each project in scope
• Actively oversee the projects to ensure that all plans, dependencies, and project activities are effectively aligned with each other and the wider programme
• Ensure that all risks and issues within these sub-programmes are effectively managed in accordance with the methodology and escalation criteria defined by the central Programme Management Office (PMO)
• Provide consolidated sub-programme reporting to the central PMO, maintaining a clear focus on the key actions and decisions required to successfully deliver each project on schedule
• Working with the Central PMO and the individual project managers, co-ordinate the roll-out of Change Management at sub-programme level, ensuring that Stakeholder Management, Communications and Business Readiness activities are seamlessly delivered.

Payments to KPMG (4.6m):
Lot 9 - Quality Assurance Services to the Irish Water Programme

This contract relates to the provision of independent quality assurance services to all of the Water Programme (including the Irish Water Metering Rollout programme). The scope of the Services to be provided includes:

• Measurement of the quality of programme and project deliverables across the entire Water Programme.
• Measurement of the quality of all programme and project processes, procedures, methodologies, controls and governance. The successful tenderer’s role includes quantitative and qualitative reviews to assess quality in a number of programme management areas, including:
  • Planning and Dependency Management,
  • Risk and Issue Management,
  • Benefits Management and Realisation,
  • Budgetary Management,
  • Scope Management,
  • Communications Management, and;
  • Resource Management
• Measurement of the quality of the Business Readiness plans and “Go-No-Go” activities across the programme, before implementation.
• Measurement of the quality of all programme testing and data gathering, migration, testing and validation activities.

jmayo

weary1 wrote: »

If its Accenture that are doing the coding lets hope they don't use Java applets on your PC. This was what the ROS (revenue online) system used - Accenture being chief consultants - , caused me days recovering from Java vulnerabilities. No other European government requires you Java to have applets on your PC.

I have the dubious pleasure of dealing with some Accenture consultants in the past.
For an organisation that used to be picky about hires and difficult to join I found the quality of their consultants a disappointment.

antoobrien wrote: »

As I said before data migration is usually done by the SI. Internal IT staff will look after the running of the system.

And sometimes internal staff can be asked to extract some of the legacy data, if there is any, and formulate it into some basic format for loading into new systems.

Sometimes you find DBAs in companies unwilling to give external entities carte blanche access to their systems.

antoobrien wrote: »

That sounds like somebody who has never had to do it. It's a royal pain when you know everything and the newly hired internal staff won't/

You see the problem with the internet is people always jump to conclusions.
You have no idea of my experience just like I have no idea of yours.

Ehh the newly hired staff should include people who have some level of knowledge and experience that can be harnessed and anyways they can be trained in new systems.
I hate this assumption often made that because you have worked with different product, DB, application, language, OS flavour, etc then you are not able to deal with something slightly different.
Yes they are always some differences, but it is not a big issue if you have the smarts and can apply knowledge you have already gained.

antoobrien wrote: »

That's no excuse for the illiterate bull that most people on here are contributing.

And there is no excuse for an arrogant approach which is basically telling people that they have no right to be concerned where their tax euros are going.

After all the shyte that has come out about wastage of public funds every major project should be fully examined from now on.
If that affects the business confidentiality of the bidding companies then they don't need to bid for the business.
And if it upsets people like you then tough sh*t.

antoobrien wrote: »

Metro north the biggest, most politically contrived, waste of money ever conceived by the state. It's only a runner because it's going through some of the best known socially deprived areas in the country. If the price of PPARS is metro north going head, then money well spent.

I don't get what you are saying here ?

antoobrien wrote: »

Deloitte are getting €472k.

Maybe they are doing an audit of their accounts. :rolleyes:

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

And sometimes internal staff can be asked to extract some of the legacy data, if there is any, and formulate it into some basic format for loading into new systems.

Sometimes you find DBAs in companies unwilling to give external entities carte blanche access to their systems.

Who said anything about carte blanche? As you well know DBAs will do everything to keep the system as tight as possible and would have a hand in migrations. The DBAs will usually be the final authority on the quality of the transferred data.

jmayo wrote: »

You see the problem with the internet is people always jump to conclusions.
You have no idea of my experience just like I have no idea of yours.

Just saying what it sounds like. I have had the dubious honour of having to deal with it in the past, in each case the SI was asked to provide the transfer capabilities as part of the system setup. That does not mean that the SI gets "carte blanche" do to what they feel like with the data models.

jmayo wrote: »

Ehh the newly hired staff should include people who have some level of knowledge and experience that can be harnessed and anyways they can be trained in new systems.

In time to make a major data move? Seriously?

jmayo wrote: »

I hate this assumption often made that because you have worked with different product, DB, application, language, OS flavour, etc then you are not able to deal with something slightly different.

You really don't want someone who's not used to a system doing data migrations or upgrades. If they don't know what's happening what's to day that they won't click the wrong button like the now infamous RBS upgrade.

jmayo wrote: »

Yes they are always some differences, but it is not a big issue if you have the smarts and can apply knowledge you have already gained.

Dangerous assumption that.

jmayo wrote: »

And there is no excuse for an arrogant approach which is basically telling people that they have no right to be concerned where their tax euros are going.

After all the shyte that has come out about wastage of public funds every major project should be fully examined from now on.

There's also no excuse for misleading people about what it's being spent on, as has been the case with all the coverage of this story.

jmayo wrote: »

If that affects the business confidentiality of the bidding companies then they don't need to bid for the business.
And if it upsets people like you then tough sh*t.

Good luck getting bidders.

Sheldons Brain

I think if anyone, from the PAC to people on this thread, as to criticise Irish Water then they should make clear whether they are basing their criticism on
- Irish Water doing things that don't need to be done
- Irish water doing things that need to be done, but which are not being done efficiently

jmayo

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

I think if anyone, from the PAC to people on this thread, as to criticise Irish Water then they should make clear whether they are basing their criticism on
- Irish Water doing things that don't need to be done
- Irish water doing things that need to be done, but which are not being done efficiently

And can we further extend that to include anyone who is defending Irish Water to please state whether they work for it, associated parent company or one of the consultancy companies hire by it ?

Somehow I think not.

BTW personally speaking I have an issue with a newly created public enterprise (i.e. quangoe of sorts) that has question marks over how executive staff were hired and who those executive staff are.
The fact that that we did not have information as regards what was the breakdown of the setup spending, apart from being told it was consultancy costs would be a major concern.

Call me a cynical old bast***, but I see nothing in Irish public life to be so forgiving or believing of anyone or anything regarding the spending of publicly acquired funds.
CRC just highlights how rotten to the core some of our publicly funded institutions really are.

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

And can we further extend that to include anyone who is defending Irish Water to please state whether they work for it, associated parent company or one of the consultancy companies hire by it ?

And if you have a vested interest in an opposition party or company that failed to get contracts.

Some of the intentional misinformation, bitterness, bile and utter bs that's being spouted is unreal.

Gumbo

So, is the general opinion on this :

The money needed to be spent but the way it was released was a PR dissaster?

Rightwing

The mind boggles as to why the ordinary jow soap is against privatisation, they mustn't know what it means, 'it must be something terrible' is all i can think of.

Godge

jmayo wrote: »

And can we further extend that to include anyone who is defending Irish Water to please state whether they work for it, associated parent company or one of the consultancy companies hire by it ?

Somehow I think not.

BTW personally speaking I have an issue with a newly created public enterprise (i.e. quangoe of sorts) that has question marks over how executive staff were hired and who those executive staff are.
The fact that that we did not have information as regards what was the breakdown of the setup spending, apart from being told it was consultancy costs would be a major concern.

Call me a cynical old bast***, but I see nothing in Irish public life to be so forgiving or believing of anyone or anything regarding the spending of publicly acquired funds.
CRC just highlights how rotten to the core some of our publicly funded institutions really are.

(1) I have issues with the amount of money spent on consultants but some of the information released reassures me in that regard. I also think that more detailed information may be able to answer these questions


(2) I have issues with the way people were recruited to Irish Water, there seem to have been jobs for the boys, whether in Bord Gais or county councils without the jobs properly advertised. This will not be as easy to show there is nothing wrong.

jmayo

antoobrien wrote: »

And if you have a vested interest in an opposition party or company that failed to get contracts.

Some of the intentional misinformation, bitterness, bile and utter bs that's being spouted is unreal.

And some of the arrogance being shown by those who supposedly have knowledge of such large scale projects is also a bit hard to swallow.

People have a right to ask questions.
People have a right to ask who and why companies got a huge wad of taxpayer funds.
Not everyone is an expert and not every expert is believable or reliable.

And yes most sensible people realise that hardware, software and it's configuration can cost lots of money, especially in such a big enterprise.
And most sensible people also realise that huge wastage of funds in such projects has gone on in the past.
There is form, hence the concern.

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

And some of the arrogance being shown by those who supposedly have knowledge of such large scale projects is also a bit hard to swallow.

Ahem

jmayo wrote: »

BTW is it too late to get onto Irish Water with proposal to use Access 95 and VB6 as the billing system.
I am willing to do it for a cheap 5 mill.

Even as a joke that just undermines everything.

jmayo

antoobrien wrote: »

Ahem



Even as a joke that just undermines everything.

That was a bloody joke.
Notice the laughing smile ?
And it was written at a point where another user was claiming any old database would handle a million users, not to mention the hundreds/thousands of transaction records that those million odd customers will end up having.

You appear to think it is good enough for some one with large project delivery to come out and just say 50 million spend is ok, so stop asking your idiotic know nothing questions.

They have supposedly spent or allocated 50 million already, but is that value for money, is that only going to 50% of the spend, does that involve any contingency allocation, are the contracts set that there are penalties if they don't deliver or have they been given a blannk cheque ?

You have to admit that the history of major software infrastructure projects in our public sector has had some awful costly cockups.
PPARS and e-voting are two of the most famous.
But there has also been the Garda Pulse system which has cost a lot of money (over 70 million) and implemented by Accenture, one of the major beneficaries of this Irish Water contract.
And yes once again a big chunk of the blame has to rest with AGS or Dept of Justice who didn't appear to rollout the necessary underlying infrastructure (i.e. broadband or some type of comms) to half the stations.

Another revelation was that the Public Services Broker at the Department of Social and Family Affairs cost €37m to deliver and came it at over twice its original estimate.

And yes we know that private institutions make hueg cockups too, but the salient point here is that it aint the taxpayer carrying the can and who ever is responsible probably sees the end of their career.

golfwallah

The biggest failures so far of minister Phil Hogan and Irish Water in their endeavours to deliver a better water system are failures of communication – both in their public announcements and reporting processes.

Phil Hogan’s obfuscation and arrogant statements about “making omelettes without breaking egg” and “micromanagement” are no substitute for clear communication.

Taxpayers are entitled to clear, summarised information about what is going on – not to be treated as if they are idiots who can be dismissed with smart one-liners. Accountability and obtaining buy-in from the majority are, after all, cornerstones of democracy – and the coalition did promise us more openness and transparency at the beginning of their administration.

Contrast this with Leo Varadkar, who puts in the work needed to understand situations and explain them in simple terms to the public. Maybe Phil needs to get a few tips from him.

"The art of communication is the language of leadership." -- James Humes, speechwriter for Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush.

"If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well" -- Albert Einstein.

“Communication is the real work of leadership.” - Nitin Nohria

antoobrien

jmayo wrote: »

That was a bloody joke.
Notice the laughing smile ?

A bloody bad one, which given what the banks are facing with the ATMs shows just how idiotic it is.

Someone that either doesn't understand it (there are plenty of them hanging around here) or worse wants to cause trouble can drop that smiley to make your joke look serious, then we'd have fun trying to explain just why........

jmayo wrote: »

You appear to think it is good enough for some one with large project delivery to come out and just say 50 million spend is ok, so stop asking your idiotic know nothing questions.

A serious problem with the attitude shown here is that the spend isn't being questioned, it's being trashed with no (apparent) consideration for the sheer scale of the project. Bear in mind that there are several systems being deployed with multi-million price-tags. The nature of some of the systems (especially the CC&B) require a lot of customisation & high availability (lots of hardware) hence the large pricetags.

I'd love to get a breakdown of where the supposed €58m saving on software licensing is coming from, but I suspect it's coming from bulk discounts.

Want to break it down? We can go try and get the specs for the various packages - most of it will be publicly available and try to come up with a figure based on the pricelists (if available), so we can see if IT spend should be higher or lower.

jmayo wrote: »

They have supposedly spent or allocated 50 million already, but is that value for money, is that only going to 50% of the spend, does that involve any contingency allocation, are the contracts set that there are penalties if they don't deliver or have they been given a blannk cheque ?

They are fixed price contracts as stated on page 9 of the submission to the environment committee, meaning the most that can be sent IBM's way is €44.8m, assuming there are no loopholes in there to allow "unexpected" costs be recouped (hope not, now where's the cringe smiley).

jmayo wrote: »

You have to admit that the history of major software infrastructure projects in our public sector has had some awful costly cockups.
PPARS and e-voting are two of the most famous.
But there has also been the Garda Pulse system which has cost a lot of money (over 70 million) and implemented by Accenture, one of the major beneficaries of this Irish Water contract.
And yes once again a big chunk of the blame has to rest with AGS or Dept of Justice who didn't appear to rollout the necessary underlying infrastructure (i.e. broadband or some type of comms) to half the stations.

Another revelation was that the Public Services Broker at the Department of Social and Family Affairs cost €37m to deliver and came it at over twice its original estimate.

There's a big difference between those projects (which every developer, project & product manger should have studied in detail either in college or on the job) they were by and large greenfield projects. This is about replicating and reconfiguring a system that already exists for a different (but related) purpose.

Also I doubt any of them were fixed price, as these are supposed to be (maybe the bods have learnt from past mistakes).

jmayo wrote: »

And yes we know that private institutions make hueg cockups too, but the salient point here is that it aint the taxpayer carrying the can and who ever is responsible probably sees the end of their career.

And there is the problem with the whole thing - the assumption that a cockup has been made in spending this money, despite a total lack of evidence.

Irish Water claim that three water groups in the UK are upgrading their systems with budgets ranging from £100m to £150m (can't find the sources IW used for these figures). If true, these figures raise a different (frightening) possibility:
Is the cockup that they haven't spent enough?

golfwallah

In last Sunday's Independent, Colm McCarthy raised the most important points of the cost effectiveness of setting up Irish Water, cost-plus regulation and how these strategic issues were ignored by the politicians in favour of the easy headlines of "bonus culture", "micro-management" and "making omelettes":

Since BGE pitched for the Irish Water responsibility on the basis of keeping costs down, it is of course fair to ask whether the Irish Water executives have been getting all of the cost economies they expected from BGE.

No light was shone on this interesting question last week. Did BGE secure the Irish Water gig on false pretences?

A deal was done last summer below the radar which will see Irish local authorities continue to provide water supply for the next 12 years, courtesy of an unnoticed committee consisting of public officials and trade unions.

A cynical interpretation is that Irish Water will be no more than a branch office of the Revenue Commissioners, collecting a monopoly tax from the public and failing to realise the promised cost economies. Monopolies are either broken up in pursuit of competitive supply or regulated by statute where this is not possible.

Irish Water is to be regulated by the Commission for Energy Regulation, the CER, an organisation whose achievements include notably high Irish electricity prices and regulated companies (the ESB, EirGrid and the gas board BGE) who complain rarely if at all about the ferocity of its regulatory oversight. Will the CER be a pussycat regulator for water charges?

The apparent asset value of the Irish water industry is €11bn, on which a guaranteed rate of return will in due course be granted to Irish Water.

But if the CER adopts the indulgent formula used to date for the state-owned energy monopolies, the public could discover that this number has been magicked upwards to €20bn or more.

There was no discussion of this critical issue, namely the tolerance for cost-plus regulation of state monopolies, at the Kildare Street panto.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colm-mccarthy/watergate-scandal-without-leaked-tapes-is-just-a-pantomime-29929436.html

patrickn

The revelation that the salaries and perks such as car allowance, VHI etc along with a bonus rate have already been sorted and were probably the most urgent item on the agenda is telling.

Minor things like water charges to be levied, levels of free allowance, waivers if any, metering of apartment blocks, improvement of water quality will be dealt with in due course.

It reminds me of the scene in Irish Pictorial Weekly in the G.P.O. while the fighting continues around them the cabinet are meeting to discuss salaries and allowances.

DuckHook

patrickn wrote: »

The revelation that the salaries and perks such as car allowance, VHI etc along with a bonus rate have already been sorted and were probably the most urgent item on the agenda is telling.

Minor things like water charges to be levied, levels of free allowance, waivers if any, metering of apartment blocks, improvement of water quality will be dealt with in due course.

It reminds me of the scene in Irish Pictorial Weekly in the G.P.O. while the fighting continues around them the cabinet are meeting to discuss salaries and allowances.

29 staff on more than 100k a year and they needed millions spent on consultants to come in an show them how do their job?

Good work if you can get it i suppose.

Icepick

Just another public service rip off.
And not only did their negotiate unearned perks and bonuses before doing anything in the new company, they also screwed the tax payer twice by getting generous severance packages for leaving their public service jobs.

Lano Lynn

clearly in a league of eggs-traordinary gentlemen.

enda promised 'jobs' was a top priortity of this government.....
he also promised change......
remember those e voting machines,compare and contrast big phils contempt with the dempsey and cullen of that cock up......ministers treating 50 million as small change........
after the stupidity of the previous government you would think that 'lessons would be learned,going forward' .........
what seems to have been learnt is that you can shaft the irish people as much as you like and get overpaid and a massive pension or two as thanks.

rodento

It just gets better

http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/iphone/homepage.aspx#_article7e26515d-0eff-4f65-a5d0-a8ec0618a572/waarticle7e26515d-0eff-4f65-a5d0-a8ec0618a572/7e26515d-0eff-4f65-a5d0-a8ec0618a572//true

The water services transition office

The 7.4 million quango

golfwallah

Looks like Colm McCarthy was right in his article in the Sindo a week ago:

A deal was done last summer below the radar which will see Irish local authorities continue to provide water supply for the next 12 years, courtesy of an unnoticed committee consisting of public officials and trade unions.

This has now been confirmed in Irish Independent and radio this morning, courtesy of Professor John Fitzgerald of the ESRI:

The new water utility has been embroiled in controversy over its set-up costs, including some €50m spent on consultancy fees during its first year in operation and potential bonuses for staff. Yet Prof FitzGerald warned the payments to consultants, which caused controversy, were "tiny" compared to this extra wage burden.

"The customers will pay for this in higher water charges," he told the Irish Independent. "These contracts with local authorities were entered into without any tender process and they will tie Irish Water's hands from making major savings."

Households have been promised savings of up to €2bn from the establishment of Irish Water to operate a national system. But Dr FitzGerald, who specialises in this area, said these savings would be wiped out by the unnecessary staff costs.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-waters-2000-extra-staff-to-cost-householders-2bn-29952271.html

Now there's a surprise!!

listermint

All my suspicions have been confirmed so far, I was skeptical at first and quite rightly.

Cloak and Dagger, Bad CEO Choice, County Managers involved at various levels despite the lack of open and thorough interview process. Ah sure theres a swill of money going around we'll pay for the tab.

Another cross over quango for transition phase...no doubt that one will be hard to kill off.

On and then on to allowances, perks, and the famous Irishism 'Entitlements'


I urge EVERYONE here to contact their local TDs and inform them what you plan on doing the next GE make sure they are clear on your intentions and the reasons why.


We'll end up here with the HSE mark II. And sure arent our health services world class like.