The thing is here, no-one is incentivized to deliver. The bureaucrats who specify the system don't really care as it's not their money, and they justify their positions by sitting in meeting and writing reports that only each other will ever read. Then there are the consultants who are paid hourly...
Typically it goes like this:
Bureaucrats: Here is a 1000-page spec document that we have spent 3 years writing. We captured all the requirements at the beginning
Consultants: We can do this project for $X. However it will take a long time and a lot of people for us just to understand your spec, so any changes to it will cost $Y.
Bureaucrats: OK whatever.
Consultants: work work
Bureaucrats: Wait, we've changed our mind about this!
Consultants: lick lips
> The thing is here, no-one is incentivized to deliver.
Amen.
Incentives are everything, and if you look at most things without keeping that foremost in your mind, you'll see a hodgepodge of weird random effects ... but use that perspective, and most things make a ton of sense.
Typically it goes like this:
Bureaucrats: Here is a 1000-page spec document that we have spent 3 years writing. We captured all the requirements at the beginning Consultants: We can do this project for $X. However it will take a long time and a lot of people for us just to understand your spec, so any changes to it will cost $Y. Bureaucrats: OK whatever.
Consultants: work work Bureaucrats: Wait, we've changed our mind about this! Consultants: lick lips