[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
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