CS 3300 Configuration Management Cases

Case 1: Year 2000

The IS Division of Burdell Inc. has an automated payroll system and is
beginning to automate other business operations. In early 1999, Eric
Whizz, the chief programmer of the accounts payable project, discovers
a utility package in the payroll system that formats, dates and records
checks, drives the printer that prints the special check forms and
payroll stubs, and prepares a report for reconciliation with the bank
statement. This software is not trivial and would take several weeks to
develop from scratch. As the payroll system has been in use without any
problems for two years, Eric copies it for use in the accounts payable
project and estimates that even with the modifications that may be
necessary, it will cut his development time by four weeks. The Accounts
Payable system is delivered ahead of schedule in the late Spring.

On February 29 the following year, as the company prepares its
end-of-month payment of bills, the system operator notices that all the
checks coming off the printer are dated March 0, 2000. The
check-formatting utility, which has been working perfectly for three
years does not handle leap years. The bug is very simple, but takes a
day to in the code that Eric copied from the payroll system.

Questions:

1. Who will remember to correct the bug in the payroll system's copy of
the check formatter?

2. If nobody remembers to make the changes, what will appear on the
payroll checks printed the following day?

3. How likely is it that the changes made to the payroll system will
exactly correspond to the changes in the accounts payable system?