Quality Issues in System Development
Quality Issues In System Development
The period between the 1970's and 1980's was a time of great advancement in computer hardware technology which took an industry still in it's infancy, to a level of much sophistication and which ultimately revelutionised the information storage and processing needs of every other industry and that of the entire world. However, it was also during this period when the shortcomings of implementing such technology became apparent. A significant number of development projects failed which resulted with disastrous consequences, not only of an economic nature, but social as well
. Seemingly, although hardware technolgy was readily available and ever improving, what was inhibiting the industry was in the methods of implementing large systems. Consequently, all kinds of limited approaches materialized that avoided the costs and risks inherent in big-systems developments.
Times have changed, and with it our understanding and experience as how best to develop large systems. Today's large systems yield greater benefits for less cost than those of previous decades. Large systems provide better, more timely information, the ability to integrate and correlate internal and external information, the ability to integrate and facilitate streamlined business processes. Unfortunately, not every system that information workers develop are well implemented; this means that the computer system which was originally intended to make a company more efficient, productive and cost-effective, is in the end doing the exact opposite - namely, wasting time, money and valuable manpower. So even with all the lessons learned from the 70's and 80's, our vastly superior methodologies and knowledge of the 90's is still proving to be fallible, as suggested in the following examples.
System Development Failures
In Britain, 1993, an incident occurred which forced the London
Ambulance Service to abandon its emergency system after it performed
The period between the 1970's and 1980's was a time of great advancement in computer hardware technology which took an industry still in it's infancy, to a level of much sophistication and which ultimately revelutionised the information storage and processing needs of every other industry and that of the entire world. However, it was also during this period when the shortcomings of implementing such technology became apparent. A significant number of development projects failed which resulted with disastrous consequences, not only of an economic nature, but social as well
. Seemingly, although hardware technolgy was readily available and ever improving, what was inhibiting the industry was in the methods of implementing large systems. Consequently, all kinds of limited approaches materialized that avoided the costs and risks inherent in big-systems developments.
Times have changed, and with it our understanding and experience as how best to develop large systems. Today's large systems yield greater benefits for less cost than those of previous decades. Large systems provide better, more timely information, the ability to integrate and correlate internal and external information, the ability to integrate and facilitate streamlined business processes. Unfortunately, not every system that information workers develop are well implemented; this means that the computer system which was originally intended to make a company more efficient, productive and cost-effective, is in the end doing the exact opposite - namely, wasting time, money and valuable manpower. So even with all the lessons learned from the 70's and 80's, our vastly superior methodologies and knowledge of the 90's is still proving to be fallible, as suggested in the following examples.
System Development Failures
In Britain, 1993, an incident occurred which forced the London
Ambulance Service to abandon its emergency system after it performed
Bibliography: 1. Fail-safe Advice, Software Magazine, George Black, 3/93 2. All fall down, The Economist, Anonymous, 20/3/93 3. DME is DBA(Dead Before Arrival), Data Communications, Robin Layland, 2/94 4. There 's No Excuse for Failure, Canadian Manager, Selim EI Raheb, 9/92 5. Laboratory Systems failure: The enemy may be us, Computers in Healthcare, Stanley J. Geyer, M.D., 9/93 6. Australian Standard Software quality management system, Standards Australia