Interesting article here on Waste Management suing SAP based on promises broken. Which is leading some to think that “IT Malpractice” suits are just around the corner.
Which, honestly, might not be that bad a thing, despite the gloom and doom:
Even when the project fully meets the specs, it rarely meets the user’s needs, since it is so hard to write a perfect project specification and requirements document. In other words, even the most perfect project could be wide open to these kinds of lawsuits.
Even worse, “programming malpractice” suits could drive out what little innovation is left in IT. Programmers will not be willing to write new software unless their company has the deep pockets and slick lawyers to protect them. Open source projects will collapse, since the lack of incorporation will make the individual contributors legally responsible.
Perhaps it’s because of the industry I work in, but I really don’t see the big deal. The model is not like doctors (suing the snot out of individual practitioners), but engineering companies. You perform to the agreed-upon requirements and specifications, you get paid. You don’t, you either negotiate to settle or you go to court. The individual practitioner (engineer) isn’t usually party to such suits, because the agreement is with the company involved.
It all boils down to specifications and change management. If either side in a relationship doesn’t do that well, you’re in trouble, whether it’s a kitchen contractor or a CRM consultancy. I well believe that the requirements and specs agreed upon may not make the customer happy. That doesn’t mean you can’t write solid specs — it just means the customer doesn’t always know what s/he wants. That’s not (and isn’t being proposed here) actionable. Saying that writing good specs is impossible, though, is just laziness.
Actually, using the term “malpractice” is misleading — this is basic contract law we’re talking here, or should be. Developers are more like a service provider than an “expert” artisan/scientist like a doctor or lawyer. We’re not being hired for our expert opinion or our one-man performance, but to provide something specified by the client and certified by us to meet those specs. It may be hard for folks to hear this, but we’re carpenters and masons with bits and bites. The guy who builds your house doesn’t get sued for malpractice — he gets sued for breach of contract.
And, honestly, given the costs and potential impact on lives of major development projects (and the dismal failure of so many of them), I think a bit of “Jeez, we really do have to do what we promise, so we should only promise what we can do” might make the world a better place in IT. If we can be considered as reliable (and responsible) as engineering firms, that’s a good thing.
There’s really two types of IT things being talked about here:
1. Off the shelf software – This should be held to the same standards as anything else you buy off the shelf, from a car to an apple pie to a How To book. This isn’t (shouldn’t be) new law. The only “innovation” I see vanishing is among software publisher advertisers. Regardless, that’s not what’s being addressed in this suit, or in the idea of “malpractice.”
2. Implementation projects – SAP offers to come in and install their software and implement it for our company and make our life So Happy. Why is that different from what any other contractor would be offering us? If they were building us a new building, or selling us a fleet of cars, or anything else, we’d reserve the right to get them to fix stuff that was broken, and sue them if they didn’t live up to their obligation. Why should it be that an IT project is somehow magically exempt from the same considerations? Write good contracts with appropriate caveats and recourses and you should be golden.
The doom-saying about Open Source is also wrong. It’s perfectly acceptable to write a contractual disclaimer offering the software “as-is” and that downloading it means you accept you have no resource if it blows up. That’s pretty much what’s already done, and if you bet the company on something like that, it’s your lookout.
What about small, one-man independent programmers? Again, it’s all a matter of contracts. Granted, an individual “malpractice” suit could be very expensive to fend off, even if contractually protected, but that’s true for any sort of individual contractor.
In a way, this is all the IT business “growing up” — seeing the services and products provided as not inherently different from any other services and products. “Free” gets you what it gets you. Small providers carry risks (and advantage). Big companies have to live up to what they promise.
It’s not the end of the IT world as we know it — it’s actually the beginning of its maturity. That’s a good thing.