Dynamic Alternatives
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Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 08:10:23 -0700


Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:   Boeing Case Study, SDS Requirements

Rod,

Comments interspersed below [in relation to excerpts from your letter on May 22, 2002 2051... ]
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

Glad you are thinking about SRS for SDS. Not sure, but I think I have the code Morris has created for SDS. The past few years, when Morris has worked on Medit, he uses code on my computer, because it is important for me to maintain it to support SDS, and this has become less of a priority for Morris, because he does not use the code for anything else. On the other hand, if there is other stuff you need from Morris, it is mostly a matter of making a request. He has always been fairly accommodating in providing this kind of support.
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Having said that, I am at a bit of a loss to understand why the assembly code for Medit is needed to get started on SRS for SDS, since all of the functionality is created above the underlying code it would seem there is a level of product description that says what are the pieces, what do that do, how are they used and how will this improve upon what is being used now, or something like that. Then at a lower level, there is an engineering description of how to write code that implements functionality and interface. Since the code that is contemplated to be created is not assembly code, it just seems that the original code is not terribly instructive. So just curious on this matter.

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Sorry, the two statements are not causally linked, they are just on related topics. My discussions with Morris focused on the what is needed to get SDS moved to a Windows program that doesn't have the memory constraints of the current program. That requires working from the assembly code since the C editor was not intended to be a functional clone of Medit, and the only real documentation is the code.
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You are correct that developing requirements for SDS uses different information. To tackle it for real would require bringing up SDS so that all of its features are visible and can be investigated. The macro code would likely be helpful as well as the only sure way of finding all the features would be to make sure that all of the macros have been covered. At the same time, this would complete the documentation of the macros, much of which I know is in the record so that it might not be necessary to go through the code for them.
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

Your feedback on FAR is helpful. You might note that none of the links to the SDS review of your report on 020315 are active, nor is there access to your report pursuant to the request for confidentiality. On 020217 you noted that we need to give people an example of problems that SDS solves. Similarly, Stuart Harrow at DCMA, the agency for implementing FAR on projects like ISS wrote on 010608 that SDS is needed to improve management....
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http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/06/08/111431.HTM#RS4J

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I have to agree with Stuart that technology alone cannot produce good management. Given a desire to produce good management, however, technology can most certainly help.

I am currently reading some work of Stafford Beer who developed a cybernetic model of Viable Systems, and what sorts of effort are required by management actually to manage the enterprise actually to manage the enterprise http://www.staffordbeer.com/ . I don't recommend you dig into it as it is hairy stuff. I am just starting, but it looks as though it may shed some light on how we are able to manage so poorly from a perspective of the way systems actually work.
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

Later Stuart advised that we need intellectual bridges to help people grasp the need for SDS....
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http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/01/07/30/054920.HTM#LC5O

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Bridges are certainly necessary. I think that an organization has to be in pretty good shape to be able to make good use of tools. The more comprehensive the tool, the more difficulty an organization in trouble has with it. As I have said, until the management and the culture achieve the determination to deliver the best product possible and to continue to align with its own stated goals, a tool such as SDS which could help them do that is simply not anything they can deal with.
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

The case study on Boeing seems to fill this requirement, although the ability of people to look at the face of disaster and shrug is amazingly limitless, so long as other people are paying the bill.
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This continues to amaze me. The deeper I dig in terms of analyzing the mismatch between the documents that are supposed to describe what is to be built and what they actually built (before writing the requirements), the worse the situation looks. There are so many broken connections in the small portion that I am able to analyze, that I shudder to think what the code must be like.
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

In any case, not pushing this too hard, but would like to explore with Stuart whether there might be a constructive way to use the ISS example to help him get some traction with SDS at his end, in a way that does not have negative repercussions on anyone. So far none of your remarks on 020315 nor today are in the public record. I think the treatment in SDS of this information illustrates a general problem without criticizing Boeing, since Boeing is in the mainstream of what everybody else is doing. However, subject to your release this remains confidential.
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I don't have any problem wit the facts of what I have said being made available, particularly to someone who might be interested and able to do something about improving the situation, but there are cases where the wording may be more harsh than I would have allowed myself in a public report. The facts, however, are as I have stated them.
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I don't think it is possible to overstate the magnitude of the mess that the ISS requirements are in. I think that the requirements and then the code need to be redone from the beginning; that this is the prototype that should be thrown away. I realize that this is unacceptable for a product that has cost the millions of dollars that this one has, but that doesn't alter my opinion.
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[ Rod Welch wrote on May 22, 2002 2051... ]

Please let me know what you think when time permits.
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Thanks for thinking about this.

Rod

Sincerely,



Garold L. Johnson
dynalt@dynalt.com