Axon clearly states there must be a minimum of customizations for the project to be successful.

In the letter to the council (sent to the lame ducks after the election, before the new members and city attorney were sworn in) I can read between the lines that the city staff were pushing for the very customizations Axon had said would be out of scope and expensive additions.

Therefore the “blueprint stage”, where requirements are specified, dragged on and on. Staff called in SAP, probably in a dispute over whether something staff wanted would be “easy or hard” to implement.

What’s interesting is Axon’s stipulation that because the city cancelled for “convenience” when they reached impass over the requirements specification (tellingly stuck at “90%”) it has to pay as if the entire project phase were actually developed and delivered.

Since the city didn’t seem to follow the contractually specified process for rejecting these deliverables, they’re on the hook. In addition, in the letter to the lame duck council the city says they’re paying the money to Axon.

Then the city continued using the Axon provided online document management system. That’s not really a big deal, and in friendly circumstances any company would be happy to give over the “90%” specification…but then the city never paid for these deliverables as promised and required by the contract.

It does suck. We, the taxpayers, paid for city staff incompetence and inexperience in managing software contracts. They’re blaming it on the contractor, Axon, saying they couldn’t create the correct specifications. But reading between the lines, the staffers were going against the spirit of the contract which was to minimize customizations.

Axon balked, and rightly so. The city decided to go directly with SAP, and pay off Axon for their efforts.

But then the city didn’t pay.

What a farce. We’re paying twice for the project specification phase. Mr. Fleming may have attempted to stop the staffers from insisting on customization and failed. Or maybe he wasn’t paying attention.

Either way, the project was doomed to failure…sadly predictable failure.