[Cronos]

If the failure rate was 100% and they've been sending it out there for the past 3 years, don't you think someone would have noticed it?????? Someone in the higher echelons of business?

[harpseal]

If the failure rate was 100% and they've been sending it out there for the past 3 years, don't you think someone would have noticed it?????? Someone in the higher echelons of business?

While one might hope so from experience at a number of places as a consultan noticing such things is not a good policy for a senior manager. The person who originally decided to outsource may well have enough power to punsih anyone who challenges him while tha same person may not be an effective challenger to others at the same level seking advancement so it is not in anyone's personal interest to call attention to the unpleasent reality. just what I have seen of corprate politics in action of some places.

[Dominic Harr]

If the failure rate was 100% and they've been sending it out there for the past 3 years, don't you think someone would have noticed it??????

There are really several reasons the pointy-haired managers don't "get" it. And it all falls under the heading,

Short-term gain, long-term pain

. They save money *now*, and their budgets look good, and they get their raises and promotions. What happens in 6 months or 3 years is not their problem. And the manager that is there when the you-know-what hits the fan will/does complain to high heaven about the situation, but since his bosses have such "success" (read: climbed the ladder using) with outsourcing the complaints fall on deaf ears.

We have a couple of managers in that situation right now, in fact.

Big IT has historically had 70% project failure rate anyway, which I've never understood. Just because a bunch of projects failed hasn't meant anything to these clowns, in the past.

Remember, this group of managers is such a nation-wide joke that they've been the main focus of the successful 'Dilbert' cartoon. Pretty much everyone *but* them knows they're a joke.