…this IT project out of Sydney appears to fit the bill: Ten years after it was first announced and almost $100 million later, Sydney is no closer to a cashless public transport ticketing system after the NSW Government was forced to terminate its contract for the troubled Tcard. Transport Minister John Watkins announced the contract […]
I’ve written a post over at my other website on why software engineers should spend time working in software quality assurance on a regular basis. ..bruce w..
From CVG comes an interesting (if brief) article on why so many commercial computer game projects are late: PC gamers waited with bated breath, to the point of asphyxiation, for Half-Life 2, but the game took an eternity to complete. Likewise, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 teased us with expectation until its eventual release, alongside Team […]
I don’t know how long this want ad for a “Manager of Technical Engineering” will remain (unaltered) on the net, but the following excerpt is amusingly honest (emphasis added): Must be able to support all needs of the VP of Customer Support. This includes collaborative thinking in such areas as resource allocation, personnel actions, departmental […]
A number of times over the past 13 years I have been asked to review an existing (and usually large-scale) IT project, figure out where it stands, and make recommendations as to how to get it back on track. I have found that a small number of questions will usually get me to the heart […]
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 […]