Peter Mac And Associates

Where’s the Engineer in Software Engineering gone?

I’m based in Melbourne Australia and I’ve been witness recently to a number of disastrous high profile IT project failures that leave me wondering; shouldn’t we be getting better at this technology stuff, not worse? The projects I have in mind are:

• Queensland Dept of Health payroll system that’s seen employees go underpaid, overpaid and without pay. Click here for more info
• LINK – The Victoria Police database switch-over that wasn’t. Click here for more info
• Myki – The attempt to introduce a single electronic travel ticket to Victorian public transport users.Click here for more info
• eHealth – An attempt to consolidate patient identification thereby enabling easier recording and tracking of patient events.Click here for more info

The details of these projects and their current status is available for anyone who wants to spend 2 minutes browsing with Professor Google, but suffice to say it’s not a pretty picture.

The upshot of each project’s failure is the negative image it portrays of the IT sector at large. Although the reasons behind the failures are different, the fact that each project is high profile and that profile goes even higher if it all goes to hell in a hand basket.

Diverse consulting companies, impatient politicians, slick tongued sales teams, uneducated buyers, an overly complex procurement and tendering system, a myriad of antiquated technologies. Take your pick, welcome to Australia!

It’s almost impossible to dismiss the fact that at the heart of all of the IT projects mentioned above is hardware and software.

As a software engineer, I’d like to think I build systems that stand the test of time. A customer buys code from me that fits their requirements, or can be configured to suit changing requirements. I don’t let my work out of the office until a test engineer has given it the stamp of approval and it’s got the necessary test cases to prove it. Occasionally you may find a difference between the expressed requirement and the executed version. That’s what we have user acceptance testing for.

You’ll find the same practices applied across most other engineering disciplines. It’s no surprise that some of the best programmers have come from the electrical and mechanical engineering schools.

So what’s going wrong? Why are so many public IT projects failing?

Are the engineers speaking up? Are we being listened to?

It’s interesting to note that the Australian government commissioned a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Sir Peter Gershon to produce a report to tell them what they were doing wrong and how they could do things better.The Gershon Report has a number of recommendations for government ICT spending rationalisation and in many cases proper measurement of cost/benefits or IT projects.

I have no answers here, only questions.

• Have software engineers got a voice at project and program management level to make a difference?
• Have we got enough input at pre-sales meetings to create a realistic impression in our customer’s mind as to the reality of what they’re about to buy?
• Have we input into the skills that will be used to create or enhance the product or service being offered?
• Are we managing the expectations of key project staff correctly and is the message being passed up the line?

As a practitioner in the IT business, I don’t want to see any more debacles reflecting badly on my profession. But as I write the word ‘profession’ I am forced to ask myself have we reached the stage yet where we can honestly say we are professional, or are we just the same as the sales rep making their next buck?