Issues with TSB release posted

Since at least April, IBM has been analyzing the issues surrounding the shocking launch of TSB software that cause clients so much banking pain.

Big Blue has found that the main problems appear to be due to a lack of testing and monitoring of the surrounding software changes. Overall, it appears that the War Room would encounter an issue that was later changed without consulting with other War Rooms. This type of practice tends to compound errors due to a lack of understanding about the impact of change.

Along with the most reliable mass deployment in lieu of multiple test and rollback stages to rectify problems. This writer finds it shocking that any software organization with so many clients and especially in the financial sector does not have a plan to back down if there is a failure, regardless of the simplicity of TSB who really believes they have tried everything before putting the system in place. ” live “for the world to see (crashed and burned).

The IBM introductory paper is an interesting read with several suggestions for software houses on IBM’s own practices. All the stages that you mention and highlight as TSB failures along with the recommendations should help anyone write a complete playbook for testing and implementing new software.

This former software test engineer is pleased to see IBM pointing out so many mistakes that others can learn from. I seem to remember the CEO of a company I used to work for saying, “We don’t need a testing department, that’s what customers are for.” As shocking as it is to anyone in the industry, it seems the TSB test team has forgotten a few simple lessons and should be back on the drawing board.

At some point, you need to realize that clear communication between the software team, the test team and the management is essential, in the case of TSB, you would have to guess a communication failure.

For TSB customers, the nightmare has been very real, for TSB it has generated more bad banking press and that has to generate trust problems. Let’s remember that posting faulty code that causes systems to stop is never a good thing, but think about the potential for system vulnerabilities and I’m suddenly glad I didn’t bank with TSB.

There is an interesting article on The Register with a link to the IBM PDF version of the slideshow HERE