Software Runaways

What you can learn from 16 colossal software disasters

If failure teaches more than success, imagine how much you can learn from the most catastrophic software development failures of all time. In Software Runaways, software failures expert Robert Glass shows exactly what went wrong in 16 colossal software disasters — and how to keep disasters from happening to you.

Glass goes behind behind the scenes of those awful projects you've seen on the nightly news — the Denver Airport baggage system, the IRS modernization — and a host of less well-publicized failures that are equally instructive. Along the way, he identifies six characteristics of projects likely to fail — and some will surprise.

Software Runaways brings a software engineer's perspective to projects like:

• American Airlines' failed reservation system, CONFIRM
• The 4GL disaster at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles
• The NCR inventory system that nearly destroyed its customers
• The next generation FAA Air Traffic Control System project that collapsed

Glass presents specific lessons to be learned from each failure, and shows how to "sniff out" runaway projects early enough to take action. He also considers the typical responses to potential runaways, including risk management and issue management, demonstrating their strengths and weakness.

Whether you're an IT executive, project manager or developers, Software Runaways helps you learn from someone else's mistakes — and that's a whole lot less painful than making them yourself!

1. Introduction
1. What Is a Software Runaway?
2. The Cries of Software Crisis
3. "Crunch Mode" and the "Death March" Project
4. Some Relevant Research Findings
2. Software Runaway War Stories
1. Project Objectives Not Fully Specified
1. BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System
2. BAE Automated Systems (B): Implementing the Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System
3. Florida Fiasco (Florida Welfare)
4. Anatomy of a Runaway: What Grounded the AAS
• FAA Shifts Focus to Scaled-Back DSR
• Why (Some) Large Computer Projects Fail (FAA)
2. Bad Planning and Estimating
1. Painful Birth: Creating New Software Was Agonizing Tasks for Mitch Kapor Firm (ON)
2. The Project from Hell
3. Technology New to the Organization
1. When Things Go Wrong
2. Intelligence Electronics Learns the Pitfalls of New Technology
3. Anatomy of a 4GL Disaster
4. Westpac Bank: The Anatomy of a Runaway
4. Inadequate/No Project Management Methodology
1. IRS Project Failures Cost Taxpayers $50B Annually
• IRS; Tough to Get Any Respect
• Learning Lessons from IRS's Biggest Mistakes
2. Agency's Drive to Nowhere
3. Bank of America's MasterNet System: A Case Study in Risk Management
5. Insufficient Senior Staff on the Team
1. Meltdown
2. When Professional Standards Are Lax: The CONFIRM Failure and It's Lessons
• The Collapse of CONFIRM
• How Confirm Worked — and Didn't
• Editor's Note on these CONFIRM Project Stories
• Bumpy Ride, Soft Landing
6. Poor Performance by Suppliers of Hardware/Software
7. Other — Performance (Efficiency) Problems
1. How an NCR System for Inventory Turned Into a Virtual Saboteur
2. Lisp Flaw Scuttles MCC CAD Project
3. Software Runaway Remedies
1. Risk Management
2. Issue Management
3. Remedies Attempted During Runaways
4. Remedies Envisioned for the Future
4. Conclusions

Shows us how nearly all projects in the IT industry is managed.

No real surprises, but funny to see it in print. For those of you not workin in IT, this is a good primer on how NOT to run projects.

Well written stories, but don't expect any solutions.