What is there to go wrong in a computerization project ?
June 26th, 2009 | 
Author: CMM documents say how to do the job.
The contract will intersect with typical CMM documents.
All the apparatus is already set up.
You have a "senior technical officer (documentation)" person who understands that a standard may be written in "ISO9000-speak" but your organization is or should be already doing anything worthwhile mentioned in an X-speak standard. Therefore there's little or any work involved in "adopting" a standard. Your organization simply keeps its
sto(doc) person who understands and can explain to your organization chief.
CMM documents such as
CMM Key Practices for Level 2 – Software Subcontract Management
… version control), and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … source code,; software development plan,; simulation environment, …. at an appropriate level of abstraction and in a timely manner. …
www2.umassd.edu/SWPI/sei/tr25f/tr25_l2d.html
and
CMM Key Practices for Level 4 – Software Quality Management
Software Quality Management. a key process area for level 4: Managed …. and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … peer reviews,; prototype development,; product simulation, and; testing. …
isb.wa.gov/policies/portfolio/tr25/tr25_l4b.html
already exist.
"In theory" these documents exist : CMM documents such as
CMM Key Practices for Level 2 – Software SubContract Management
… version control), and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … source code,; software development plan,; simulation environment, …. at an appropriate level of abstraction and in a timely manner. …
www2.umassd.edu/SWPI/sei/tr25f/tr25_l2…
CMM Key Practices for Level 4 – Software Quality Management
Software Quality Management. a key process area for level 4: Managed …. and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … peer reviews,; prototype development,; product simulation, and; testing. …
isb.wa.gov/policies/portfolio/tr25/tr2…
and the contract has an equivalent philosophy so all should be well.
"In practice" there may be a need to check every second, or minute, or hour, or day, or week, that these policies are being followed. (Someone could have waded into a meeting, said "this is all obsolete", and adjourned the meeting indefinitely. The meeting used to, during the meeting, schedule a time for the next meeting, but this no longer happens because the meeting is never held. The organization may need "repurposing" – it has forgotten its purpose)
Posted in Software Contract Management
People kangarooing from project to project habitually omitting a key factor for success. Just your luck they kangaroo to your project.
References :
Irony.
As a silly example :
Plays running include "The man who would be king" and "The madness of King James".
Ironic that this influences the choice of staff. For example good people named James apply for jobs but are mysteriously weighted less in rankings.
References :
Every thing that can go right wont.
References :
Not enough standards police, or developers or testers, in the universe
if the person doing the job desn't want to do it, or doesn't know how to.
References :
If you have everything recorded you may be able to trawl it and find out.
For example people taking potshots at each other like in Angelina Jolie
Tomb Raider "Bungee Ballet" movie.
People taking potshots at each other as if it was "Paintball". If you're supposed to be producing high-quality software it doesn't really work if you're being sabotaged.
There may be a "configuration control board" which is NOT exactly following what the contract says to do, and is fouling things up.
For example their checklist may say "Phone the Config "data cell" people to find out the correct version of the software you are signing off". However this info is supposed to GO to the Config people AFTER you sign it off.
References :
Model your organization using the 48 Machiavelli-inspired laws.
Notice that things can go wrong.
Example :
In order that there be an "informed purchaser", your organization which is acquiring some systems posts its own representatives to the supplier's headquarters so that they can absorb the design philosophy. This is all expalined in the contract.
A rogue member of your staff starts holding weird meetings.
To blend in with the weirdness of the person calling the meeting,
one of the people posted blurts out that there is a security problem at the supplier's headquarters. (He saw a classified document).
The supplier has made his whole building very secure. This absurd remark about a security problem gets back to the supplier.
Everything is downhill from there.
References :
There needs to be a personnel division.
There needs to be an awareness of narcissistic personality disorder.
The organization needs either not to recruit such people, or to be robust enough to neutralize them if they are recruited.
Personnel divisions were very conscious of all this in the 1970s.
References :
There's a contract, with schedules indicating what happens.
If things go wrong it's because someone stopped monitoring the contract schedule.
Someone mistakenly said "that document's obsolete" and unfortunately they were believed.
References :
"In theory" these documents exist : CMM documents such as
CMM Key Practices for Level 2 – Software Subcontract Management
… version control), and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … source code,; software development plan,; simulation environment, …. at an appropriate level of abstraction and in a timely manner. …
www2.umassd.edu/SWPI/sei/tr25f/tr25_l2…
CMM Key Practices for Level 4 – Software Quality Management
Software Quality Management. a key process area for level 4: Managed …. and changes are incorporated in a controlled manner (i.e., change control). … peer reviews,; prototype development,; product simulation, and; testing. …
isb.wa.gov/policies/portfolio/tr25/tr2…
and the contract has an equivalent philosophy so all should be well.
"In practice" there may be a need to check every second, or minute, or hour, or day, or week, that these policies are being followed. (Someone could have waded into a meeting, said "this is all obsolete", and adjourned the meeting indefinitely. The meeting used to, during the meeting, schedule a time for the next meeting, but this no longer happens because the meeting is never held. The organization may need "repurposing" – it has forgotten its purpose)
References :
experience watching Collins project from the world window of the Sunday newspapers