Abstract
There are outnumbered IT projects which were responsible for causing serious problems in different fields of life. The worst cases in which there was a great loss faced include the online chemical bank transitions fault, the NASA spaceship problem, and the machine Thorac-25 failure. These projects were developed and supervised by highly reputed institutes and organizations but still, their failure was a questionable mark. The main cause of the failure is the highly complicated codes running at the back end, and the fault could be expected anytime anywhere. Any IT project’s quality could be improved by only its finishing through proper quality assurance techniques and applied methodologies.
Introduction
Information technology is not a simple field of study and implementation. The people involved in it need to track their every step from start to end for an efficient implementation of the system. Failures could always be expected, and through hundreds of revisions during the final application, the system is finalized. Most of the time, the corporations are unable to figure out after implementation and updates that either they are doomed or failed to overcome the issues. The outcome is not well defined, and there are indeed some reasons why the mega projects that were supposed to change the entire world failed. These reasons include the lack of leadership on the projects, overuse of multitasking, lack of accountability, insufficient and inefficient communication, no proper plans or timelines, lack of adequate use testing and the wrong diagnosis of problems, and higher expectations of solutions. The main aim of the paper is to discuss some of the world’s mega-projects that failed because of the poor quality of IT project implementation.
Discussion
There are some of the most terrible examples which caused the loss of millions of dollars. In 1981, the space shuttle’s five onboard computers failed to work efficiently to perform a perfect landing which failed a project that was started in 1977 with such high expectations. People from all over the world hope to step into the modern world with such great success. The main reason for the failure was the computer’s lack of compatibility in working in the absence of one another. The machines were unable to manage the landing and control the system at all. The overall blame was on the information technology implementation. It has been explained that if the computers used could be a little bit more expensive and updated, as well as the testing phase would have been updated in some ways, then this failure would not have happened. The programmers explained that the shutdown problem was discussed and adequately tested on all the computers, but still, the issue was not diagnosed at all.
Another one of the most highlighted examples of the disastrous implementation of IT projects in the field is the radiation therapy found wrong, resulting in the death of two patients in the hospital. The patients were supposed to take radiation to the affected parts, but because of the higher strength of the radiation and uncontrollable dosage, it caused intensive damage, which resulted in the death of the patients. The research team for the investigation concluded some interviews with the experts at that time, which finalized that there is a range in which the patient should be given the radiation, and above that range would cause fatal side effects the most prominent being death. The machine Thorac-25 was designed to cure cancer, but the percentage of benefit was remarkably lower than the damage. The cancerous cells were supposed to be killed, and their function would be ended, but also the work of the machine was extended to killing some of the most critical healthy tissues as well. Here the blame was totally to the software being used, as it had some major glitches.
One of the most critical issues raised during the very initial implementation of the banking history was a mistaken deduction of fifteen million dollars from one hundred thousand customers’ bank accounts. The chemical bank mistakenly attempted this act through an automated software’s one-line of code error in the updated system. The failure was that if a customer used ATM for the withdrawal of $100, the system automatically deducted $200 from his bank account. The receipt had printed only the one thousand dollars in the withdrawal. This affected a huge number of customers which was an alarming situation in the overall banking world. The people had trusted the banking organizations, and because of this glitch, there were outnumbered back-offs happened. The issue was handled precisely in a specific period, but this issue was noticed in the international world, which resulted in the reliability of information technology in such a sensitive and highly customer-oriented market. The problem was analyzed that one line in the loop was coded correctly but was not implemented according to the requirement.
Mostly the output is always considered during the implementation of information technology projects. The way of application and accuracy is recognized, but the complexity of the work leads to some logic, syntax, and some primary exceptions. The very fundamental errors are corrected at the time of compilation, and the consistency is also measured during the time of finalizing the work. At the testing stage and real-time implementation, most of the work is also corrected, which results in even removing the basic level exceptions. When all the functions are compiled and timely executed, it becomes close to perfection but still, in the code, there are some essential things that are ignored and are not implemented as required. These issues cause fatal damage and disasters. They are only corrected by step-by-step implementation of the quality management techniques which are discussed above.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, it can be elaborated that the system would be improved not by just adding some functionalities but also by reviewing the previous working of the projects. History contains the world’s most significant mega projects, which failed, and the original benefit was not obtained at all. Quality management and quality assurance are some of the best techniques that would help in the successful implementation of IT-based projects.
References
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
