Y2K lessons learned


A Guide to Better Information Technology Management





The Y2K worldwide computing crisis, arising from a largely preventable problem, appears to have been averted. This happened as a result of unprecedented cooperation, executive-level leadership, international mobilization, the exhaustive efforts of innumerable people, and the expenditure, in the United States alone, of over $100 billion.





Whether, of course, a crisis-management approach such as this is the desirable model for insuring the success of twenty-first-century information technology (IT) initiatives is questionable. A more effective method is the preventive approach this book addresses in detail.





In this timely guide, author Timothy Braithwaite argues that companies that struggled to resolve their Y2K problem did so because they had failed historically to adequately manage their use of information technology and the ways in which IT software and systems were built.





Y2K Lessons Learned chronicles IT industry conditions and those preventable IT management and system development deficiencies that created not only the Y2K problem and crisis but most other IT problems with which many organizations are all too familiar. Unless taken seriously and acted upon, these conditions and deficiencies will continue to plague future IT endeavors.





This accessible and highly informative book delivers practical problem-prevention guidance for the successful integration of IT into business and government systems. Specific IT management recommendations and systems development "best practices" are suggested that will substantially reduce the risk of a Y2K-like problem occurring in the future, such as security breaches. Many of these suggestions will require greater executive-level participation in IT decision-making. Multiple checklists and detailed management review guides are provided to facilitate this participation.