Risk Management

Activity 2

1. Read the following problem:

Minor Changes—Big Risk, a Tale of Woe!

A large and very well known healthcare organization sported a very large mainframe infrastructure to run the software to support its patient care function. This consisted of billing, patient records, administrative software, and 150 applications to support general practice.

The organization received continual upgrades for this software. In general, the primary actions around implementing these code fixes were cursory testing to make sure the software didn’t break the system and then coordinating a time to implement it into the live environment.

In the case of one particular code fix to the billing system, the organization followed its ususal procedure. The fix was implemented at midnight on a Tuesday. However, by the Wednesday morning, the billing system was so broken that workers were sent home for 3 days because there was no work for them.

The estimated loss in revenues during this period of 3 days until the system could be brought back online exceeded $1 million dollars per day. The vendor was immediately involved, and the organization requested a fix for the fix.

What had appeared to be a simple fix created a ripple through the system that brougnt the entire system down.

How could the disaster have been avoided?

2. With your colleague, discuss how the disaster could have been avoided.

Then complete a table together based on the template below and based on your analysis of the problem described above.

Follow these links for more background:

Risk Assessment

Risk Identification

Risk Analysis

Risk Response

XXXX Risk Management ID and Analysis Template

3. When you are done, post it to the Sharepoint teamspace. You will be presenting it via a WebEx meeting to the other groups.

Activity 3

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B.Johnston/2006