[LINK] Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

Bernard Robertson-Dunn brd at iimetro.com.au
Mon Jan 14 14:27:27 AEDT 2008


Linda Rouse wrote:

> Whilst on the topic (sort of) of IT failures... I guess most Linkers are 
> familiar with
> 'Pessimism as an Information System Management Tool in the Public 
> Sector: Lessons from the INCIS Fiasco in the New Zealand Police Force'  
> by Tony Dale et al..
> http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/reports/TechReps/2002/tr_0202.pdf

Thanks for the pointer Linda, I'll add that to my collection of failed 
projects.

I worked at IBM in Canberra when NCIS was coming to an end. A very 
senior IBMer came over from the USA and did an informal review of the 
project. The root cause of the problem was that a couple of software 
gurus from a USA lab flew in, proposed that the police replace their 
highly optimised, mainframe based, green screen applications with a 
three tier client server system and flew out, never to be seen again.

And that was the source of the whole problem - everything else flowed 
from that decision. The fact that it had never been done before, that 
nobody knew if it could be built or would work were not even identified 
let alone understood by those in charge.

Which gets back to my point about people making decisions outside their 
area of competency. Nobody was able to make a value judgement about a 
project that was, in effect, R&D.

The problem with governments is that they want certainty, therefore the 
budget and timeframe are set first. You can't do that with projects that 
are first offs, which is what happens with most large scale IT developments.

BTW, the statement in that paper "The majority of information system 
(IS) developments are unsuccessful" is probably wrong.

Most large enterprises have big Information Systems that support their 
business. So how did they get developed? I suspect that the statement 
might be a bit more valid if the context is "first off systems developed 
by external parties such as consultants and/or vendors."

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au




More information about the Link mailing list