During final testing directly before the launch of a new payroll system, the project managers found a problem. The prepackaged payroll system started doing the following:

• Writing checks for negative amounts

• Printing checks with names and employee numbers that did not match

• Making errors such as \($8\) per hour becoming \($800\) per hour if a decimal point was not entered

• Writing checks for amounts greater than a full year’s salary Fortunately, payroll was still delivered on time and only 1.5% of the checks had to be manually reissued due to the problems with the system. Still, the 1.5% of the pay¬ roll checks had to be manually reissued every payday until the problem was solved.

Other problems were that no one made sure the new system was compatible with the existing payroll database, and there appeared to be no formal transition between the development of the project and the implementation of the project. Also, the system was never run in parallel.

Although the programming manager lost his job, the payroll problems helped raise awareness of the company’s growing dependence on IT. Lacking a major prob¬ lem, there was a perception that the information system did not affect operations.

Required

a. What does “the system was never run in parallel” mean?

b. If the company had run the system in parallel, what should have occurred?

c. What other testing methodologies could have been used by the firm?

d. What other types of problems are evident from reading the case?

Source: Adaptedfrom Polly Schneider, “Lessons Learned: Payroll on the Loose,”