For the past 6 months, you have worked on a project to develop a transportation
ID: 3641196 • Letter: F
Question
For the past 6 months, you have worked on a project to develop a transportation software program for the city of Agropolis, which has been designed to make some much-needed improvements to Agropolis’s system of public transportation. You and your team of programmers have worked very hard on this project, but you have encountered difficulties that could not possibly have been anticipated in the original design plan; these difficulties have put your project significantly behind schedule. The city transportation planners are nervous, because they depend on the software from your company to get the new transportation system up and running. And the management at your company is very uncomfortable because they signed a contract to deliver the required software on time. Although the software is not yet foolproof, testing thus far reveals that it works about 99 percent of the time. The few glitches that remain apply only to the transportation system’s backup code, which arguably would be needed in only the most severe emergencies. Residents of the city are also eager to have a new transportation system in place.A decision is made by the management of your company and by the managers of the city transportation system to go ahead and implement the software as it is. They base their decision on the possibility that a backup system would not be needed for several months (at which time the remaining bugs should be fixed). A decision was also made by management on both sides not to announce publicly that the software still has a few bugs. You and a few of your coworkers believe that the bugs are more dangerous than management is willing to admit. What would you do in this case? Would you be willing to blow the whistle? Defend your position.
Explanation / Answer
Let me give you the "real world" solution to this problem. (Take it from me I work for a very well known software development company. your probably using their OS right now) 1. IF management has decieded to release this software without releasing to the "public" the bugs then so be it. That decision is ultimately theirs. You and your team could express your concerns to management using verbal and written methods. However, you and your team are just code monkeys. This is a very common practice in software development. 2. NO system is absolutely bug free! It is statistically impossible. Your professor should know this. 99% is good enough for release criteria. The client should be given the opportunity to decide whether or not to push this software to production. Several months to fix "minor" bugs seems excessive (thats just my opinion). Not "real world" answer 1. An effort should be made to voice the devlopers position to management as soon as possible. However, the ultimate decision is up to management and the client. It would be good practice to log these bugs in the companies system and make management aware of their existence. (we call this covering your ass) Ethically one would make the client aware of your position. Realistically this is not your responsibility.