what are its failure factors that have been caused. Here I have taken four different examples in order to analyze system failure projects and also I have appraised them in to suitable development methodologies by using discovered factors.
A system is an integrated set of elements that accomplish a well defined objective. It is a combination of hardware, communication technology, software, business processes, people and goals. A system failure can occurs due to various kinds of reasons. Ultimately it can be a hardware failure or a sever software failure.
According to many evidence it has been recognized that half of the IT projects have failed because of their un accomplished goals, over budget and poor management skills.
With the competition it is very important to measure the project failure factors to implement it's predetermined goals and also can proactively manage the project by taking corrective actions.
The Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS).
The UK Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible of safety of nation's traveling which is maintaining an effective system for inspecting and maintaining airplanes. FAA is responsible in implementing the aviation regulations and policies for it's inspectors in order to operate the aircrafts in a safety manner.
According to wealth evidence in 1980s the major accident rate ranged from 0.25 to o.92 per million hours flown. Ultimately in 1998 the accident rate was ranged as 0 by showing that accident rate has gone down due to the effectiveness of the FAA.
FAA uses a continuing analysis and a surveillance system in order to maintain a corrective efficient system through the assigned inspectors. About 3259 of inspectors are employed in the FAA who are responsible to ensure the air carriers according to the aviation rules. In early 1980s FAA implemented a new programme called National Inspection Programme and again in 1986 this programme was hand overed into the National Aviation Safety Inspection programme by ensuring their programme with FAA regulations. But again in 1996 recommendations were made to implement a new system due to the safety inspections and disasters which have occurred.
In result in 1996 FAA implemented a new system called Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS) to implement the system of FAA being a helper to the inspectors. Here in the ATOS`s main task is to guarantee the safety and also to identify the potential problems in order to survive perceived customers. The ATOS includes 75 systems, 15 subsystems and 95 underlying component elements.ATOS is responsible for the inspection of airlines such as Alaska, America, and West and etc; . But when implementing this new system the final two phases were not active in reliably in the system. There were occurred some specific issues to unable the ATOS.
With relevance to the research paper the main failure factors are as follows,
1. FAA guidelines which have given to the it's inspectors are not clear enough that may
occur the confusion and ineffectiveness.
2. Data are not clear enough.
3. The inspector's job tasks are not still completed.
4. Inadequate production of data in the implement phase.
5. The aviation enviourenment has been more complex.
Choosing an appropriate development methodology is extremely important for the success of the project and according to this well structured and defined problem situation and clear requirements are supposed to use the traditional systems development life cycle methodologies (SDLC).
As this is, highly user requirements are wanted we can appraise the waterfall methodology as a structured method. And here the main problem situation is the unclear data gathering to the inspectors.
Waterfall methodology is sequential development model through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis and design.
We can use the water fall method as requirements are identified before a long period ago, proper functioning, and also since the requirements are being identified more chance to being in the budget.
And also the major disadvantage will be that we cannot change the system again the backwards and the user requirements have to be specific. Long time between the submissions of the proposal. As this method includes poor project management there can be a high risk also.
The other structured method is spiral methodology which is a software development process combining elements of both design and prototyping in stages. The other main failure factor is the complexity of the system and poor risk management. If we take the spiral methodology we can easily change the system with the new requirements and also here we can see a clear risk management phase as well as a good review before the next phase .But the disadvantage will be the more complexity of the system.
As an unstructed methodology we can use the agile software development which is similar to rapid application development. This will be a good methodology to the system as the user involvement is highly used. Here the development times are in weeks.
( process is in a short time). And goes with how people collaborate. Users, designers, and
architectures must implement the system together because when the changes are implemented they can take the dynamic decisions as well as it can identify changes because implement in twice a weak. This is a well planed methodology because this goes on a methodical way and also on certain principles.
According to the above identified factors we can identify critical failure factors as follows, when compared to the gurus in system failure factors analysis in relevant to the Flowers (1996) framework of failure factors.
Organization context
Poor reporting structures
Initiation phase
Lack of complexity underestimated
Development phase
Poor communication
Implementation phase
Inadequate user training
Receding deadlines
The Mizuho Financial Group Banking System
Mizuho is a foreign bank which is under Mizuho holdings in Tokyo.Dai -ichi-kangyo Bank Ltd, Fuji Bank and Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd are administrated under the Mizuho holdings.
The main issue that Mizuho financial banking system faced was the business uncorrupted with the automatic teller machine transaction errors and delayed automatic debts though the customers did not receive the money. The insufficient time for the implementation period and also testing period is not enough for the operations. The fail automatic debits were about 105000 as well as the number of delayed debits were reached at 2.5 million by causing the biggest banking failure in the world.
The main failure factors that Mizuho bank faced were as follows,
1. During the programmed development the relationship between primary system with the relay system was not connected to each other and occur some certain problems with the ATM transaction errors.
2. Inadequate information about the transactions.
3. The failure of online system due to the programming errors.
4. Inconsistency of testing periods.
5. At the integration phase decision making was being delayed.
6. The management committee did not receive the data on time to prepare the system.
7. The system was not tested during the process.
According to these failure factors we can categorize them in to two critical failure factors.
Technical problems.
Poor management.
Here if we apply the waterfall methodology there can be more or less user involvement by limiting the prevailing issues rather than without user involvement. This system has already identified their objectives and the system can easily use the waterfall methodology as this is a highly strutted one. The disadvantage side is, the user requirements are nor concerned 100% due to the poor management and sometimes there would be a priority to occur a risk.
Then reaching to the other structured method the spiral methodology, we can change the system as the objectives are going to change. According to the issues that have taken place we can assume that there were some proper planning and low decision masking through the phases. If we use the spiral model there will be a specific review at each phase before proceeding to the next phase, but when implementing the system the complexity will be increase step by step.
As an unstructed method we are suppose to use agile methodology. According to the above scenarios there were issues ensuring of the untested procedures of the system.
But if we appraise the agile model as it is implementing twice a week we can easily identify it's defects and also can get more heavier user involvement as there is specific user involvement phase. When the defects are being identified more time is available to the other procedures. All people who use the system must collaborate their contribution, but this cots a large amount as to implement it twice a week in order to detect the defaults.
When analyzing the Flowers (1996) framework of failure factors to the above failure factors we can categorize them as follows;
Organizational context
Poor reporting structures
Initiation phase
Technology focus
Analyzing and designing phase
Poor consultation
Implementation phase
Inadequate user training
Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System
Denver International Airport is the largest international airport in the United States after King Fahd International Airport and Montreal Mirabel International Airport. This system was supposed to handle the baggage system by using a computer aid system. Denver International Airport baggage handling system is the biggest automated airport baggage handling system.Annualy they handle more than 50m passengers covering a land of 140 KM2.When they test the system bags were misloaded, misrouted and some bags fell on to the tracks causing the system to jam.
This was a huge competitive advantage to the system reducing 30 minutes on aircraft handling time. Here their main problem was the underestimation and the complexity of the system which caused a large amount of interest charges.
They use a system as a whole one rather than using three concourses. As the automated system is not adapting, they use the usual manual way and in August 2005 they officially abounded the system completely.
The main failures that the Denver International Airport faced as follows,
Under estimation and complexity of the system.
Poor decision making.
The risk which was occurred in the initiation phase.
Insufficient time to test the project.
Unclear understand of the customer requirements.
Poor management.
Insufficient communication.
Technical problems.
The critical failure factors would be the;
Underestimation
Complexity.
When appraising the waterfall model as a structed methodology, we can apply this model as there is a high user involvement .But the major disadvantage is in you cannot review and cannot do changes.
The other structed methodical way is the spiral model, though this is a complex model there is a specific phase in the risk management which helps in reducing poor management and decision making.
As the unstruchted model we can use agile methodology where it has a specific user involvement and able to identify the changes as it is updated twice a weak.
When we consider the Flowers( 1996)model in to our consider;
Organizational context
Poor reporting structure
Initiation phase
Technology focus
Complexity underestimated.
Analysis and design phase
Poor design by committee
Development phase
Competency
Implementation phase
Receding deadlines.
Similarities in project failures
Project
Common failure factors
The Air Transportation Oversight System failure.
Technical problems.
Underestimating
Complexity.
Poor programming.
Poor identification of user requirement.
The Mizuho Financial Group Banking System
Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System
Conclusion
Here the main objective was to identify the main failure factors through three system failures. Commonly we can see four main types of system failures such as poor management, technical problems, underestimation, and complexity. Ultimately according to those failure factors, critical failure factors were identified and two structed methodologies and one unstructured methodology was applied accordance with those failure factors.
And also according to the framework by famous gurus, Flowers (1996) there were many issue as he identified earlier when compared to the above defined systems.
