Newsletter Volume 26 Issue 12, Dec 2014
From The Editor
Our December 2014 Issue brings updates on some of our earlier 2014 articles, including further lessons learned. Also, we can reflect on the lessons provided by Original Software’s 2014 IT Disaster Hall of Shame.
“mounting evidence of flaws in many of these studies points to a need for researchers to be wary of serious pitfalls that arise when working with huge social media data sets”,
see below, The Big Bad Data Debate
“As a powerful and disturbing example, the 2010 report into appalling failings in patient care at the UK’s Stafford Hospital (where between 400 and 1200 more people died between 2005–2008 than would have been expected) found that amongst the reasons why patients were routinely neglected was that the management team had become preoccupied with cost-cutting and hitting predefined targets.”
See below, The Social Metrics Debate Revisited: The Bigger Picture
On 11 December 2014, Original Software published its 2014 IT Disaster Hall of Shame , with the comment from CEO Colin Armitage,“Our 2014 Hall of Shame shows that tech disasters, system screw-ups and software glitches are still very much a part of the modern IT landscape. And they rarely go unnoticed. Customers, employees and shareholders can all be badly affected by disruptions in service and as a result, the organization takes a big reputational hit. Again this goes to show that defect detection, quality assurance and testing have to move up the corporate agenda – failings in these areas can have massive consequences for the business.”
See below , The 2014 IT Disaster Hall of Shame
Events
“The World’s most successful Awards Program”
In 2015 Consensus will bring together Consensus Award winners over the past 15 years.
What are they and where are they?
• 94% of the winners are in the B2B model space
• 86% are private company entity, 10% public entities
• 98% are software manufacturers or software providers
• 57% are SaaS – based, most on the cloud. In 2015 Consensus will bring together Consensus Award winners over the past 15 years.
Our next Issue will provide more details of this event.
Current Issue
Articles in the current Issue cover:
The Big Bad Data Debate
“When it comes to getting news about politics and government, liberals and conservatives inhabit different worlds.”
The Social Metrics Debate Revisited: The Bigger Picture
“The belief is that strict targets and the reporting of performance is all that is needed to move the public sector organization toward heightened performance. This is both a dangerous and erroneous proposition!”
The 2014 IT Disaster Hall of Shame
“These are our pick of IT screw-ups that have had disastrous, painful or hilarious consequences.”
Wishing all our readers success in meeting the challenges and reaping the benefits of innovation and improved software management practices in 2015.
Ted Smillie
QESP Chairman