4 ms·

Seems like software failures are a common occurrence in british banks and airports. Perhaps a culture of corner cutting, and calling it agile, might be the caus

Seems like software failures are a common occurrence in british banks and airports. Perhaps a culture of corner cutting, and calling it agile, might be the cause?

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
Or a culture of outsourcing.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Outsourcing to the lowest bidder
  - utouq 7y ago
    [indian flag emoji]
- bitbatbangboo 7y ago
  cries in InfoSys
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
14113 7y ago
Speaking as someone who (for a time) worked in the IT department of British Airways, the culprit is really just ancient systems that aren't well maintained, along with institutional and industrial pressure not to improve them or upgrade them. For example, I worked as part of the team that managed the software that allowed pilots to submit flight plans. Any upgrades had to go through multiple weeks of reviews and testing (I don't mean code review - I mean reviews through managers and processes), and was run on some rather ancient hardware. Moreover, thanks to pressure from the pilots union, the system had to be able to accept flight plans by fax, so had a lot of legacy cruft to support that too. The problem isn't agility, corner cutting or moving too fast - it's moving too slow.
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  But any network airline has the same legacy issue and needs to connect to the same, relatively ancient, reservation systems. Of all major metwork carriers it really seems to be BA with an annual complete shitshow of their IT systems.
  - 14113 7y ago
    Well maybe the other carriers have less awful legacy tech - I can't speak for what they have. All I know is what I saw while working at BA.
- t0mas88 7y ago
  As a pilot, I'm really sorry about the state of infrastructure at the destinations, but we need fax or phone sometimes. For context: Imagine a crew room, with an old yellow looking windows 95 machine as the only "IT service" and only GSM-speed (or no reception at all) mobile internet in the area. The machine doesn't really work, or is on a dialup connection (yes this still exists). These are the cases where we use the phone, or write the plan manually on a form and fax that. The phone has a high risk of mistakes, because you're reading lots of numbers and codes so it's easy to misunderstand one.
  - 14113 7y ago
    That's a much more reasonable explanation - thanks, I appreciate it! The way I'd had it explained to me was more along the lines of "greedy pilots want to be able to fax because they can't be bothered to learn how to use email", but your explanation makes a lot more sense.
newsgremlin 7y ago
Legacy software and outsourcing to consultants or contractors. I think that's the story for most organisations in the UK - not willing to invest in having a dedicated team of in-house developers. Meanwhile developers are like nomads and are on the move to the better paid jobs and/or the better tech stack and better workloads. Lot of new graduates coming through but still not enough to meet demands in the market. Training is the biggest cost imo.
- trilila 7y ago
  Funny you mention that. Most contractors I worked with and have worked at the likes of BA and banks complained about permanent employees resistant to change, and being out of date in terms of practices used, bureaucracy and "not my problem" kind of attitudes. Obviously, the most incompetent complained about contractors as they would get a way higher daily rate, while most of those permies struggle to find a job even tho the market is an employee market.
lawlessone 7y ago
Can't speak for Airports but banks aren't agile lol

Seems like software failures are a common occurrence in british banks and airports. Perhaps a culture of corner cutting, and calling it agile, might be the cause?

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

Or a culture of outsourcing.

isostatic 7y ago
Outsourcing to the lowest bidder
- utouq 7y ago
  [indian flag emoji]
bitbatbangboo 7y ago
cries in InfoSys

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

14113 7y ago

Speaking as someone who (for a time) worked in the IT department of British Airways, the culprit is really just ancient systems that aren't well maintained, along with institutional and industrial pressure not to improve them or upgrade them. For example, I worked as part of the team that managed the software that allowed pilots to submit flight plans. Any upgrades had to go through multiple weeks of reviews and testing (I don't mean code review - I mean reviews through managers and processes), and was run on some rather ancient hardware. Moreover, thanks to pressure from the pilots union, the system had to be able to accept flight plans by fax, so had a lot of legacy cruft to support that too. The problem isn't agility, corner cutting or moving too fast - it's moving too slow.

CaptainZapp 7y ago
But any network airline has the same legacy issue and needs to connect to the same, relatively ancient, reservation systems. Of all major metwork carriers it really seems to be BA with an annual complete shitshow of their IT systems.
- 14113 7y ago
  Well maybe the other carriers have less awful legacy tech - I can't speak for what they have. All I know is what I saw while working at BA.
t0mas88 7y ago
As a pilot, I'm really sorry about the state of infrastructure at the destinations, but we need fax or phone sometimes. For context: Imagine a crew room, with an old yellow looking windows 95 machine as the only "IT service" and only GSM-speed (or no reception at all) mobile internet in the area. The machine doesn't really work, or is on a dialup connection (yes this still exists). These are the cases where we use the phone, or write the plan manually on a form and fax that. The phone has a high risk of mistakes, because you're reading lots of numbers and codes so it's easy to misunderstand one.
- 14113 7y ago
  That's a much more reasonable explanation - thanks, I appreciate it! The way I'd had it explained to me was more along the lines of "greedy pilots want to be able to fax because they can't be bothered to learn how to use email", but your explanation makes a lot more sense.

newsgremlin 7y ago

Legacy software and outsourcing to consultants or contractors. I think that's the story for most organisations in the UK - not willing to invest in having a dedicated team of in-house developers. Meanwhile developers are like nomads and are on the move to the better paid jobs and/or the better tech stack and better workloads. Lot of new graduates coming through but still not enough to meet demands in the market. Training is the biggest cost imo.

trilila 7y ago
Funny you mention that. Most contractors I worked with and have worked at the likes of BA and banks complained about permanent employees resistant to change, and being out of date in terms of practices used, bureaucracy and "not my problem" kind of attitudes. Obviously, the most incompetent complained about contractors as they would get a way higher daily rate, while most of those permies struggle to find a job even tho the market is an employee market.

lawlessone 7y ago

Can't speak for Airports but banks aren't agile lol