Question 1.1: Software in the information society1. See if you can discern any trends. Explain with evidence any trends you discover. Software is all around us today and it has evolved over time to make our work simpler and easier. Over the past decade, the number of software projects has increased to meet growing demand. A research firm called CompTIA released a statement in 2013 predicting that the growth of IT professionals in the United States will increase by 22% by 2020, illustrating that the demand for software is high and growing. Since then, we have witnessed immense changes in the industry. the “software crisis” (1965-1985) where many problems in software development were identified. This included the Therac-25 incident and the aviation industry; which was plagued by software issues. Then came the period 1985-1989 where we managed to find solutions to the “software crisis”, by formalizing methods, documentation and creating standards for software development. We have seen software failures at all levels and Charette (2005) listed some common factors on why projects often fail; • Unrealistic or unarticulated project goals, • Inaccurate estimates of required resources, • Poorly defined system configuration, project status reporting • Unmanaged risks • Poor communication between customers, developers and users • Use of immature technology • Inability to manage project complexity • Sloppy development practices • Poor project management • Politics from stakeholders • Commercial pressures Here are some examples of failures identified in a study (Verna, Smapson, Cerpa): • A Sydney Water Board project o Excessive rework costs o Inadequate planning and specifications... middle of document.. . chess. NASA, for example, has implemented rigorous reviews of its most vital software systems and the healthcare world should emulate these programs. Safety-critical systems that rely on computers should only be deployed with great care. It is clear that we have not exercised such caution since in 2010 a glitch in Gisborne Hospital's software resulted in one patient's details being displayed as those of another . This can lead to misdiagnoses, mistreatment and potentially serious harm. Knight (1990) noted: "Integration of software quality assurance, security analysis, independent verification and validation, and independent testing activities will significantly improve security, reliability and maintainability. of these vital systems. » In summary, all projects are prone to failure if not planned and well managed..