= Significant Software Failures of M.J.Bishop

INTRODUCTION

  This document attempts to explicate, in a manner basically cronological the various significant
  failures which I have experienced in my software development career up until now

  This document is not really complete yet.

  Abbreviations: 
    ASP:   Microsoft Active Server Pages, a server-side web-application system.

METIRI MENSUS

  At the Sydney-based database company I was employed on a trainee basis and was requested to 
  create a system which would allow employees to make requests for various types of 'leave'
  (holiday, sick-leave, etc) using the company intranet. This was my first software development 
  job of any significant duration. Essentially I failed in this attempt to create a useful system
  in a reasonable amount of time. At the time of my leaving this company a working Active Server Pages
  system was in place, but there was no indication that it was actually going to used, and the amount
  of time it took to create this small system (8 months) was completely disproportionate to its
  possible utility. 

  The reasons for this failure were as follows.
    Firstly, my programming experience was very limited and in particular I had no experience in 
    programming in a networked environment. In fact I did not even understand basic networking concepts
    such as 'protocol' or 'server and client'. In addition, in the company, which only had approximately
    6 employees in my office, there was no other experienced programmer to offer me advice or guidance. 
    Moreover, my familiarity with the Internet was very limited and my Internet research skills were 
    poor and for this reason I was unable to use this resource to point myself in the right direction.

MASSIVE INTERACTIVE

  At this web-design and development company I was charged with fairly routine ASP 
  Database development tasks, which I believe I carried out more or less effectively. However, in 
  addition, I was asked to convert a large Coldfusion Web Application into ASP. This task was completely
  unsuccessful for the following reasons:
    I never obtained or had access to a working copy of the original ColdFusion Application. This was 
    great psychological barrier for me, because I had very little confidence that the code which I was
    converting actually worked in its original form. 

    Because of personal financial pressures and the tense working environment, I found it difficult to 
    make frank and honest statements to management about realistic time-frames for the completion of this
    task, and for the inherent risk that the job might fail altogether. 

    I attempted to convert the application in its entirety, rather than getting small chunks of the 
    application to work, piece by piece. 

    The original application was poorly written

ISIS COMMUNICATIONS

  Isis communications was a well-financed "dot-com" company which no longer exists. My failures at
  Isis were more of a human and conceptual nature rather than of a software type, since the actual
  data transformation task which I was given I believe I succesfully carried out. By the time of my
  employment at Isis communications I had enough experience to be able to become aware of simple
  management mistakes in the guidance of a software project and in the general aims of a Internet
  based enterprise. For example, the decision of management at Isis communications to buy a large
  legacy e-commerce ASP application and to convert this application to the specific purposes of 
  Isis, was clearly a mistake. This mistake was compounded by a management decision to hire a team
  of contractors to customise this application. These contractors were hugely expensive and had
  no particular interest in the long term success of the project. My failure, in this situation, was
  not to make clear and honest submissions to management about these errors. 

  Once again I was motivated by a sense of my own financial insecurity and by a desire not to 
  "rock the boat" and to continue to draw my rather generous wage. However in retrospect, I see this 
  as short-sighted and a basically unsatisfying approach. 


ELLA ASSOCIATES

  At Ella Associates, I was working for a university friend on the creation of a distributed 
  XML editing application. Since I have now left this project I am not aware of its current
  status, but I would suspect that it will not have a rosy future. My main failure, once again,
  on this project, was more of a human and "directional", rather than of a purely technical
  nature. 

  Once again, from nearly the very outset of this project I was aware of grave risks and problems
  of general approach in the creation of this java (netbeans) based application. Once again, however
  my desire to remain financial solvent (in this case in Spain) induced me to be less than frank
  about the various problems and difficulties which I foresaw.