Chapter 7

Chapter 7

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

VIGNETTE 

Boeing dreamliner faces a few bumps in the road

1.)Is this example of software problems holding up the introduction of a major new product and impacting a firm's customers and suppliers unusual, or is it a common occurrence?

Ans:

Yes, this kind of instances is very common especially in the world of business, either in the hardware or software field. sometimes the causes of this are lack of resource management and cost management.

2.) What can organizations do to reduce the negative consequences of software development problems in the production of their products and the operation of their business processes and facilities?

Ans: 

As an organization develops plans and strategies to deal with the opportunities and challenges that arise in its particular operating environment, it should design a system that is capable of producing quality services and goods in demanded quantities in acceptable time frames.

Case 3:Patriot Missile Failure

 1.)With the benefit of hindsight, what steps could have been taken during development of the Patriot software to avoid the problems that led to the loss of life? Do you think these steps would have improved the Patriot’s effectiveness enough to make it obvious that the missile was a strong deterrent against the Scud? Why or why not?

Ans:

The point we make here is that errors in design and implementation of hardware and software systems can, and often do, carry a human cost.  Good design is not just an academic issue – it is also a human issue.

 

2.)What ethical decisions do you think the U.S. military made in choosing to deploy the patriot missile to Israel and Saudi Arabia and in reporting the effectiveness of the patriot system?

 

Ans:

 

The primary ethical decisions would have been how to protect the largest number of people - and since they could not cover everybody and had a limited number of missiles - which areas were not going to be defended.

 

 

3.)What key lessons from this example of safety-critical software development could be applied to the development of business information system software?

Ans:

There are many reasons why safety should be considered as a relative concept. For example, how would you demonstrate that a system was absolutely safe. Even if it continued to operate without any threat to safety for several years, there may be no guarantee that it will not fail in the next 24 hours. Changes in the environment, hardware failures, untested modes in software systems can all work together to expose systems in ways that had not been done in a previous period of `safe' operation. Hence continues safe operation may paradoxically increase our level of confidence in a system but may also lead to different concerns about the longer-term safety of an application.

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