- 102 -
preexisting banking systems, resulted in a new or improved business
component at Norwest.
The SBS project went through a process of experimentation.
EDS, Bank One, and Norwest personnel met regularly to review and
critique the EDS technical development of SBS and recommend changes
to the system's design. Specific concerns were raised, for
example, with respect to the volume capacity of the database
system, DB2, which was one of the critical elements of SBS. In
addition, concerns were expressed as to the user architecture and
the use of the PACBASE tool. Alternatives were proposed and
discussed for each of these concerns (although apparently not
adopted by EDS). These alternative suggestions, together with Mr.
Phillips' claim (to Dr. McDermott) of a 50-percent chance of
failure of the SBS project, buttress a finding that there was
uncertainty at the outset of the SBS project. Other issues
concerning functionality, through data modeling, were also
discussed. These issues and others were tested extensively at
Norwest with respect to the customer module over a 3-year period,
resulting in the discovery of hundreds of problems, some of which
were attributable to poor technical design and others to poor
programming of the source code. This process of developing,
reviewing, testing, and analyzing the various approaches proposed
by EDS constituted at least 80 percent of the development of the
SBS system and satisfies the formal standards of experimentation
sought by Congress.
Page: Previous 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011