Summary
Despite overwhelming technological progress and advancement in every aspect of human life, technologies fail sometimes. Moreover, it is not even hardware flaws that are the most dangerous. Software failures are far more dangerous and harder to fix. The waste of money on pretty preventable mistakes is huge, and if people were more cautious and attentive to details, much money could have been saved. The issue gets worse, as IT and technologies develop. Software is everywhere, and its failure is unavoidable, but prompt and effective response can help avoiding pitiful consequences. Many of its errors are predictable and avoidable. A good IT team can save or at least soften the consequences of any failure.
There are many ways in which software errors have led to dramatic consequences for people’s time and money. We tend to rely on IT systems more, while we know so little about how to avoid glitches and failures. The range of failures is so wide that there is no single metric that can classify them. At the same time, the governments of many countries are on their way to implement electronic systems in all possible spheres, and when failed, such attempts turn out to be very expensive and time-consuming. For example, health record or army future combat systems were either terminated or cancelled as a result of unknown technological error. Banks, stock exchanges, airports and other important administrative institutions of governmental importance are subject to failures in their IT systems.
Another major risk is an overwhelming attempt to use one, but complex system, instead of a bunch of the simpler ones. Replacement of multiple systems may seem good as it makes a system look easier for a person and allows saving some costs on its management. However, the failure of such system paralyses everything, while flaws in simpler but multiple systems allow prompt fixing and does not have that disruptive effect on every operation. The suggestion is to make more reliable and realistic prognosis about the operation of a future complex system. However, this is still is not a panacea as more money and time still cannot prevent IT failures. They do not happen at once, but rather as a snowball, they grow and become more dangerous.
Every failure has its reason. It is worth spending time trying to find one, as it may explain how to avoid problems in the future. Many issues can lead to improper system work such as insufficient testing or incorrect assumptions. Elimination of such errors can help IT failures evasion. Otherwise, these reasons, unreliable project costs estimations and unrealistic expectations may lead to a project death. Ironically, there is a graveyard of projects that consumed huge amounts of money but were not able to perform the expected functions. Some of them amount to hundreds of billions dollar.
As a result, we may come to the conclusion that as the systems become more complex and multitask, It failures and software issues occur more frequently and mean more serious consequences. IT is present in every aspect of modern society’s life, and failures in its operation threaten to affect people globally. The majority of failures occur with governmental projects that tend to be visible and transparent for the public. Commercial IT failures also occur with sufficient frequency, but their scope is limited. If nothing is changed, millions will be wasted on projects with little practical value. However, the problem is that no statistical data on software failures is reliable and can reflect the real scope of the issue. Only specially-educated auditors can distinguish between similar projects, and this leads to significant manipulation in project costs estimations. Therefore, no one is able to see the real size of IT failures estimated in dollars.
