During the implementation and testing phase, and just before launching a new payroll system, the users/payroll-officers found that the new payroll system was failing at many fronts. The users discovered that the new payroll system was doing the following:

• Writing cheques for negative amounts
• Printing cheques with names and employee numbers that did not match
• Making errors; for example, $10 per hour became $1000 per hour if a decimal point was not entered
• Writing cheques for amounts greater than a full years salary of an employee

The new payroll system was installed on time, and only 2% of the cheques had to be manually written every payday until the problem was fixed.

Other problems were that no one had 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. The system was never run in parallel.

Although the project manager lost his job, the payroll problems helped raise awareness of the companys growing dependence on IT.

a. What does the system was never run in parallel mean? If the company had run the system in parallel, what benefits would have been obtained?

b. What testing methodologies should have been used by the firm to have eliminated the above problems?