Robert N. Charette is an internationally-known risk analyst and systems expert. For the last 20 years, he has been getting to the bottom of the pervasive and costly problem of software disasters. In his five decades in career, Charette—fifty years! During this time, Marc has witnessed a recurring and damaging pattern of collective delusional thinking by IT workers, government leaders and corporate bosses. What he’s been finding is pretty alarming. Despite the ongoing investments in cash or space-age technology implementations, poor decisions continue to lead organizations to waste millions and endure costly interruptions.
Charette’s expertise in this area is well documented through his writings, including an award-winning article published in 2005, “Why Software Fails.” He makes the case that most software failures aren’t surprising—they’re forecastable and avoidable. Charette understands why this makes people feel defeated. More than anything else, it highlights a deeply frustrating lack of urgency among organizations to face these problems head on.
“The biggest tragedy is that [software failure] is for the most part predictable and avoidable. Unfortunately, most organizations don’t see preventing failure as an urgent matter, even though that view risks harming the organization and maybe even destroying it.” – Robert N. Charette
A particularly egregious instance of this shortcoming is the Canadian government’s Phoenix paycheck disaster. Though it ultimately compounded the financial and emotional suffering of the millions of employees, their families, and communities. Nine years after its rollout, issues with the system are still resurfacing, serving as a cautionary tale of the decades-long consequences of software mismanagement.
Charette’s observations would not stop with specific projects. In it, he shines a light on how governments have, as a whole, failed time and time again, resulting in trillions wasted through the years. He points out that after years of experience and observational study, the same mistakes keep coming back around.
“Software is as significant as electricity. We would never put up with electricity going out every other day, but we sure as hell have no problem accepting AWS going down or telcos or banks going out.” – Robert N. Charette
This analogy illustrates the pervasive and foundational importance of software within today’s infrastructure. Americans demand reliability from basic, essential services like electricity. Just as sure as clockwork, they’ve been trained by digital service providers to expect that. Charette’s comments reflect a truly alarming double standard of expectations for technology versus what’s expected of traditional utilities.
As an editor in Special Projects for Spectrum IEEE, Charette’s work truly dazzles. In this human curated content section read more from Oren on Data series, addressing the dangers associated with software creation. He thinks that sectors where the stakes are higher, such as medical devices, need far more stringent standards. This is crucial because when software fails, lives are at stake.
“When you’re building software for medical devices, there are a lot more standards that have to be met and a lot more concern about the consequences of failure,” – Robert N. Charette
Even with new technology making it easier and raising awareness of software shortcomings, Charette is still disappointed to find many organizations don’t want to change. His observations paint a clear picture of chronic corporate negligence that endangers both corporations and the riders they serve.