SoEasy is a medium-sized firm in the detergent manufacturing sector. It started operations in 2008 and its customer base is quite large, comprising both foreign and local firms and individuals. In July 2012, the management of SoEasy approved the automation of its operations using an off-the-shelf package.
Around May 2013 a number of defects and problems were identified with the software. The local agents of the software providers were accordingly invited for a discussion and solution of the defects and problems.
The management of SoEasy directed that to save time, the agents should quickly do the fixes on their own for normal operations to continue. After the agents reported they had completed their job, operations continued without any tests being performed. Two months later, operations nearly came to a halt because of software issues.
Required:
a) Explain how the software should have been acquired and the bugs (software errors) corrected. (10 marks)
View Solution
Software acquisition:
- SoEasy ought to have ascertained its exact software needs before taking the steps to acquire the package.
- Having identified the package, SoEasy should have carried out a thorough user acceptance test to ensure the software needs were met.
- SoEasy staff ought to have been sufficiently trained in the use of the software. This would have been done by the agent, a normal component of software acquisition. (5 Marks)
Clearing software bugs:
- An elaborate software maintenance contract should have been entered into between SoEasy and the agents.
- SoEasy staff should have been fully involved in the software amendment process.
- Thorough tests (regression tests) should have been carried out by the agents with the participation of user staff to ensure the amendments were properly carried out and that the resulting programs would work flawlessly. (5 Marks)
b) Advise the management of SoEasy on the way software defects and problems should have been handled in future. (10 marks)
View Solution
- Any software maintenance contract in existence should be reviewed to ensure it doesn’t favour only one party.
- In future all software issues should be properly documented and forwarded to the information systems (IS) manager if there is one, or to a manager nominated for the purpose.
- The documented issues should then be discussed with an IS steering committee.
- The approved documentation should then be passed on to the Chief Systems Analyst for discussion with his/her team of Analysts
- Competent Programmers and other user staff should then be trained to work on the issues in conjunction with the agents.
- Regression tests should be carried out on any amended programs to ensure that the amendment exercises have not created new problems.
- The amended programs should be fully documented. This documentation should replace any existing ones.