June, 06 2004

Simon points to computer-driven woe at the Royal Bank of Canada. They have 155 people working on the problem.

In the olden days, I used to work at a bank. They ran their entire transaction processing load on a brand new IBM 4341. One pension day, something really bad happened, and in the space of two minutes, the computer room filled with people.

They arranged themselves thusly:

• In the first row, typing at the 3270 console, were the two operators that were rostered to run that day’s jobs.

• Arranged in a semi-circle behind them were all the other operators, the operations manager, and a few systems programmers. They were being very helpful, pointing at things on the screen and making suggestions.

• Behind them was a third semi-circle, consisting of the senior systems programmer, and all the department’s managers, including the executive in charge of IT. They also seemed to be making suggestions, but were enjoying it far less than either of the two inner shells.

I know all this because I was visiting some of the other operations staff at the time, and was left to watch the scene unfold through the plate glass windows. Pretty soon, the area I was in filled up too.

I looked around, decided that no good could come from watching a disaster unfold, and made myself scarce.