Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Substantial evidence shows that as early as 1962 the term “software”
was being used much more broadly to refer to a broad range of com-
puter-based applications.
25
But even if one were to insist on a narrow
systems-oriented defi nition of the word “software,” however, then the
predicament described by the McKinsey report might simply be rechar-
acterized as an “applications crisis.”
26
From a more modern understand-
ing of software as the heterogeneous collection of tools, applications,
personnel, and procedures that together comprise the system of comput-
ing in action, the distinction is immaterial.
Whether we call them a software crisis or an applications crisis, the
concerns of corporate managers were clearly about the “softer” elements
of computer-based systems. The crucial distinction to be made between
the applications crisis discussed in the business literature and the more
technical literature on the software crisis lies not in its identifi cation of
symptoms but rather in its diagnosis of the underlying disease. Both
communities were concerned with the apparent inability of existing
software development methods to produce cost-effective and reliable
commercial applications. But where the technical experts identifi ed the
root causes of the crisis in terms of production—in other words, as a
function of the diffi culties inherent in
building software right
—many
corporate managers believed that the real challenge was in determining
the
right software to build
. Faced with exponentially rising software
costs, and threatened by the unprecedented degree of autonomy that
top-level executives seemed to grant to computer people, many corporate
managers began to reevaluate their largely hands-off policies toward
programmer management. Whereas in the previous decade computer
programming had been widely considered to be a uniquely creative
activity—and therefore almost impossible to manage using conventional
methods—by the end of the 1960s new perspectives on these problems
began to appear in the industry literature. The real reason that most data
processing installations were unprofi table, according to the McKinsey
report, was that “many otherwise effective top managements . . . have
abdicated control to staff specialists.” These specialists might be “good
technicians,” but they had “neither the operation experience to know
the jobs that need doing nor the authority to get them done right.”
27
Or
as another contemporary report summarized the situation, “many man-
agers sat back and let the computer boys monkey around with systems
that were doomed to failure or mediocrity.”
28
The dramatic shift in tone of the management literature during this
time is striking. Prior to the late 1960s the conventional wisdom was
