Culture eats policy
I'm reminded of the adage that to really get things done, you need a small qualified team, and everyone else to get out of their way. (See the original Appke Mac team as an example.)Big projects are hard. They're expensive. With large budgets comes lots of oversight, endless second guessing, and a zillion rules, perfected over years, to ensure money is not wasted or stolen.I once pitched an off-the-shelf program to a corporate, which would have cost 10k to roll out company wide. But the procurement process demanded a proper evaluation first, which eould cost about 5 times that. Better that than letting someone later claim that 10k was wasted.Large business wastes just as much money as govt, but when a business makes a mistake they just stop talking about it. In govt it ends up on CSPAN. When it's not your money, it's easy to spend. Reputation (and blame doging) is far more valuable than cash.Which brings us back to well resourced, small teams, of competent people.