Software Failure: Management Failure (Paperback)

Many millions are wasted every year on building, extending and fixing information systems that either do not perform as expected, do not work at all or are abandoned before they are implemented. Details of the events that contribute are too often shrouded in non–disclosure contracts and confidentiality agreements, the causes of errors never to be aired and analysed by those in a position to prevent similar blunders in future. Newspaper reports of spectacular fiasco’s provide as much hard evidence as most are likely to hear, but what proportion of substandard and unwieldy IS developments come into being and continue in use simply because they are not so flawed as to be totally useless? The purpose of this book is to bring together material about a number of significant information systems which did not perform as originally envisaged and to provide a coherent account of the surrounding events. The author identifies major causal events and draws from them management lessons. In case after case critical factors point out strategic, organizational or resource problems rather than technical bugs. The value of comparing these woeful tales is to become aware of the way that organizations can become locked in a cycle of failure, condemned to repeat the mistakes of others. Read and be warned! Learn from the experiences of

• The Performing Right Society
• The Confirm Development
• Socrates Reservation System
• California’s DMV
• The London Ambulance Service
• Denver Airports’ Baggage System
• TAURUS at the London Stock Exchange
• The Pineapple Group
• B of A Masternet
• The IRS
• and, unfortunately, more

Many millions are wasted every year on building, extending and fixing information systems that either do not perform as expected, do not work at all or are abandoned before they are implemented. Details of the events that contribute are too often shrouded in non–disclosure contracts and confidentiality agreements, the causes of errors never to be aired and analysed by those in a position to prevent similar blunders in future. Newspaper reports of spectacular fiasco’s provide as much hard evidence as most are likely to hear, but what proportion of substandard and unwieldy IS developments come into being and continue in use simply because they are not so flawed as to be totally useless? The purpose of this book is to bring together material about a number of significant information systems which did not perform as originally envisaged and to provide a coherent account of the surrounding events. The author identifies major causal events and draws from them management lessons. In case after case critical factors point out strategic, organizational or resource problems rather than technical bugs. The value of comparing these woeful tales is to become aware of the way that organizations can become locked in a cycle of failure, condemned to repeat the mistakes of others. Read and be warned! Learn from the experiences of

• The Performing Right Society
• The Confirm Development
• Socrates Reservation System
• California’s DMV
• The London Ambulance Service
• Denver Airports’ Baggage System
• TAURUS at the London Stock Exchange
• The Pineapple Group
• B of A Masternet
• The IRS
• and, unfortunately, more