Several years ago, I served as an expert witness in a trade secrets lawsuit involving algorithmic high-speed trading and learned some fascinating things in the process (most of which I can’t talk about). So it was with some interest that I read this article about the market’s near-instantaneous reaction to the Federal Reserve’s decision not […]
It can be hard to imagine that you can spend billions of dollars (or, worse yet, pounds) on IT systems without having much to show for it, but, yes, it has happened again: An abandoned NHS patient record system has so far cost the taxpayer nearly £10bn, with the final bill for what would have […]
Since I’ve been writing a lot about large-scale IT project failures, here’s a story about a troubled-but-completed IT project: the CalPERS re-engineering effort. It’s hard to call it successful when it cost double the original estimate ($586 million vs. $279 million), took over 16 years (it started in 1995 and went live in 2011), […]
I wrote last week about problems with the UK Government’s Universal Credit project, an attempt to do a system-wide replacement and re-engineering of IT systems for the Department for Work and Pension. The latest news article now states that the project has already written off £34 million and may end up writing off up to […]
It seems that each year brings another story about a failed or very troubled IT project attempting to replace or re-engineer the computer systems for some state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. The latest is this well-researched and well-written article by Bruce Landis at the Providence Journal about the problems the state of Rhode Island has […]
Classic patterns in disputed IT project: Hertz v. Accenture
Just ran across this article at the always-irreverent-but-usually-spot-on Register, an IT news site out of England. The standard patterns of a troubled IT project are so evident in this one report that I may well use it as a case study for my CS 428 (“Real-world software engineering”) class this fall. Here are some of […]
Neverending Story pattern: School District ERP system late, over-budget
A story a few days ago caught my eye, not because it was unusual, but because it follows so familiar a pattern. Here are a few excerpts from the article: MANATEE — Late nights, hefty contracts and humming computers are a norm in the district’s School Support Center, where employees are working to fix a […]
Minnesota DMV software project: Faulty Towers/Neverending Story patterns
In my 2000 white paper, “Patterns in IT Litigation: System Failure (1976-2000)” [PDF], which I researched and wrote while at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I describe six broad fact patterns to classify the types of software system implementation failure. One of those patterns I named “Faulty Towers”: The client buys the system from [or has the system developed […]
![The Meltdown/Spectre CPU bugs: a dramatic global case of the “Unintended Consequences” pattern [UPDATED 4/4/18]](http://bfwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/intel-cpu-150x150.jpg "The Meltdown/Spectre CPU bugs: a dramatic global case of the “Unintended Consequences” pattern [UPDATED 4/4/18]")
Back in 2000, PricewaterhouseCooper published my research white paper, “Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)” (PDF). This paper reflected research I and my staff had done over several months on roughly 120 two- or three-party lawsuits involving information technology. I found that almost all of these lawsuits fell into one or two of six […]