(1) Source: CIO Magazine, June 15, 1997, survey by IDC Research of 503 Year 2000 project managers

Managing a Year 2000 Project

20 Tips for Success ⁽¹⁾

1. Take the Year 2000 seriously: it is a business issue as well as a technical issue.
2. Start early. Find out where your company is as soon as possible - in terms of your internal processes as well as any possible electronic connections with others.
3. Get high level management involved and keep them informed.
4. Establish a high-level Year 2000 Program Office to oversee and monitor Year 2000 budget, work plans, quality and resources.
5. Establish a Year 2000 Executive Task Force (Steering Committee)
6. Remember one of the key tenets of project management: the first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time allocated, the last 10% takes the other 90%.
7. Treat all Year 2000 projects as extremely high risk.
8. Use your best people for Year 2000 projects, especially those who have a track record of bringing in projects on time.
9. Invest significant time and resources in assessment and determining your exposure and risk.
10. Invest time and resources in very detailed project planning and quality assurance activities.
11. Complete your Year 2000 activities as soon as possible. If you operate in a competitive market (who doesn't?) you may gain a significant advantage by being early.
12. Don't cut corners.
13. Expect to be surprised by the extent of your Year 2000 challenges.
14. Plan for runaway prevention.
15. Ask for help. This is no time to think you know it all. If you require outside resources, get them as soon as possible. Consultants and other contractors are quickly becoming scarce and their cost is rising.
16. Test and test, and re-test everything. Then, test it again.
17. Procrastination and denial turn fixable problems into million dollar disasters every day. Don't be one of them!
18. Communicate, communicate, communicate throughout your organization.
19. Encourage people at all levels to ask questions and share their perspectives - they may see something that could turn disaster into success.
20. If you are planning to purchase (or merge with) another company, find out their Year 2000 status. If you are planning on selling your company, investors will be asking the same questions of you.

(1) Some tips provided by Jim Porter, Managing Director, Harvard Porter & Associates.

Formula for Failure #1 - Ignoring the Top 10 Reasons Why Software Projects Fail ⁽²⁾

1. Incomplete requirements
2. Lack of user involvement
3. Lack of resources
4. Unrealistic expectations
5. Lack of executive support
6. Changing requirements and specifications
7. Lack of planning
8. Software no longer needed
9. Lack of Information Technology management
10. Technology illiteracy

(2) Source: from an article "Sketchy Plans, Politics Stall Software Development" Computerworld, June 19, 1995

Formula for Failure #2 - Ignoring the Success Rate of Software Application Development Projects ⁽³⁾

• Completed on time, on budget (16.2%)
• Canceled at some point in the cycle (31.1%)
• Over budget, late and with fewer features and functions than specified (52.7%)

(3) Source: from an article "Tough Love Reins in IS Projects" Computerworld, June 19, 1995

Formula for Failure #3 - Ignoring the Danger Signs of Runaway Information Technology (IT) Projects ⁽⁴⁾

1. The project is the largest ever undertaken by the organization
2. The project uses people without comparable experience (whether employees or consultants)
3. The project is highly integrated
4. Leading-edge technology is involved
5. The software being used is untested in the industry
6. The software needs modification to meet your needs.

Notice that ALL of these factors are present in most Year 2000 projects.

(4) Source: from an article "Before Disaster Strikes" CIO Magazine, June 15, 1993

Case Studies from CIO Magazine's Year 2000 Forum (September 15, 1996):

• Chubb & Son Inc. Insurance: Chubb started their work in 1994 and expects to be complete by March 1998.
• Cumberland Farms Inc: About 75-80% of their programs are more than 5 years old.  They are in the early stages of reviewing their situation.
• U.S. Social Security Administration: SSA tripped over the Year 2000 problem in 1989 and has been working on it since then.  With 30 million lines of code in production and another 20-30 million in development, they have a major project!
• Yellow Technologies Services: Started in 1995 to review the size of its Year 2000 problem.  They have a plan for their mainframe applications, but haven't yet tackled the issue of desktop computers (with 10,000 user applications), which are outside the responsibility of their IS department.

Case Study - Large university (who asked to remain anonymous):

This university tripped over the Year 2000 problem in the late 1970's when a new enrollment projection system (which included calculations based on birth rates) began projecting into the 21^st century.

The situation in mid-1997: They are compliant in some areas and behind in some areas. A large amount of production code written (or purchased) in the last 5 years is Year 2000 compliant.

The group responsible for student applications completely rewrote a major portion of their systems in the early 1990's and considered the century implications at that time.

They considered Year 2000 issues in anything else developed in the last 5 years or so. This accounts for about 60% of their software portfolio.

About 20% is purchased from vendors and is either Year 2000 compliant or the vendor has a release scheduled for this year to address Year 2000.

They are just beginning to come to grips with the final 20%, which is mostly ancient COBOL code in financial accounting and payroll applications. They have analyzed that code and elected to fix sorts, logic decisions, etc. via code rather than database structure changes.

According to their Year 2000 schedule, they are already behind the power curve and need to make significant progress in the next 6 months.

Case Study - Status of our Year 2000 effort:

1. Our PC's have the hardware flaw. That is, the date rolls over to 1/1/2000 just fine when the date is changed and the computer is running. However, when re-started, they revert to 1/4/1980.
2. We know that some of our software will handle the Year 2000 (we haven't checked everything yet).
3. We have converted our databases to 4-year dates.
4. We estimate that we are more than mid-way in our Year 2000 work, and expect to be completed by the end of 1997.

What we've learned so far:

1. Everything is taking longer than originally expected (from double to 10 times as long).
2. Once we did a pilot test on our databases, we found that we have far more work than we initially expected. We have many more databases and files to be converted than we originally expected.
3. Because of inter-linking databases (i.e., zip code and other cross referenced files/tables), our changes were more complicated than we initially expected.
4. As we got into looking at programs, data and reports, we saw little things that we wanted to change as well - adding even more time to the project.
5. We found that we have to go into each data file, each program and each report and really look at each field and how it was used. Fortunately, every database we use that has a date field has the word "date" in the field's name.
6. Once, we improperly changed a non-date data field to a date format, which caused lost data when we restructured the database. Good thing we did those backups before we started!
7. Our primary database software was upgraded to a new version recently. Some of our older databases had not been used for a while. Opening those older databases with the newer software caused the program to abort. Fixing those problems added more time and effort.
8. An older custom database reporting system that we use less frequently may have to be replaced (or re-written). We have not yet determined the best course.
9. Because our PCs have the hardware flaw, we will likely have hardware upgrades that we had not anticipated originally. Cost and availability is yet to be determined.
10. We have yet to determine the total impact on fax machines, phones, voice mail, pagers and other electronic devices.
11. We experienced a "jolt" when we realized how different our effort was compared to our original expectations. Now that we've gotten past the shock and started making some progress, we feel much better knowing our situation realistically and can work toward resolving the rest of the unknowns.
12. Our experience seems to be "typical" according to the research we've done.

Questions and Answers 

Won't Year 2000 will only affect computers that handle business applications?

Not true! Home computers, clocks, fax machines, answering machines, time clocks, electronic timing devices, drivers' licenses, credit cards, loan calculations, etc. will potentially all be affected. Even if you fix your own problems, you may have to deal with other people and organizations that have not fixed all of theirs.

Will most computer systems developed after 1980 be okay without changes?

No. In fact, most computer systems (regardless of when they were developed) did not consider the Year 2000. For most organizations, this issue is just now getting attention.

Are mainframe systems the only applications facing the Year 2000 problem?

No! In fact, all computers are faced with this problem, regardless of size.

I have a new Pentium Personal Computer. Surely it will handle the Year 2000 without problems.

Not true! Most desktop computers (PCs) will appear to be OK if the date is changed while the computer is running. However, when they restart, they will reset the system date to January 4, 1980. Some will record a hardware error, others will happily boot up without a sign that anything is wrong.

The only way to know for sure is to check each computer for hardware flaws, software errors, then check each and every data file and report for possible date issues.

Is Year 2000 a leap year?

Yes, which complicates the challenge. Special handling of leap year dates must often be added.

The estimated cost to fix Year 2000 problems in the United States alone exceeds $50 billion - this seems like a huge amount of money for a simple date change.

Paul Strassmann recently estimated the worldwide cost to fix the Year 2000 problems at more than $600 billion (far more than the combined costs of the Kobe earthquake, Southern California earthquakes in the last decade and Hurricane Andrew). (Computerworld, June 9, 1997)

The amount to fix the problem is really unknown. People who have been tracking potential changes and doing pilot projects have estimated that most organizations will be affected in some way, and that the majority of computers and systems will be affected in some way.

A major complicating factor is that the entire world is facing the same problem at the same time! It's a bit like the gasoline shortages of several years ago. Everyone is getting into the same line for the same services, creating huge overloads in demand for the same resources. The difference with the Year 2000 is that we have known about this challenge for quite a few years. With the gasoline shortages, we had much less time for planning.

Won't the Year 2000 problems mostly affect large companies?

Not true! As noted above, most computers and computer systems will be affected. In addition, many other electronic devices may be affected: fax machines, elevators, programmed devices, telephone switches, voice mail, pagers, etc.

Is it true that an application program that does not have a century field may appear to process correctly, yet give incorrect results?

It is possible for a program to run without creating an error. However, the math calculations based on date (such as a person's age), may be incorrect because they do not correctly interpret birth dates, due dates, etc. In large computer systems with huge amounts of data, a few errors may not be noticed until serious complications have arisen (such as rejecting payments, generating inappropriate late notices or calculating incorrect interest rates).

Year 2000 problems affect only the software applications; operating system software is not affected.

Not true! Different operating systems compute dates in different ways. Therefore, each one must be checked and verified that it will compute its date correctly.

Date change failures will begin to appear on January 1, 2000.

Not true! In fact, failures are already occurring and have been for quite some time. The problem will, of course, become more obvious and more destructive as we get closer to the Year 2000. Some computer programs consider years of "00" or "99" to be errors. How they handle those dates depends on the program.

Client/Server applications are not affected by Year 2000 because their operating systems have been designed to be Year 2000 compliant.

Not true! Client/server applications are at risk as much as other systems.

Most Information Systems (IS) departments have not yet taken steps to effectively deal with the Year 2000 problem.

True, according to industry surveys. In mid-1997, most IS departments are at least aware of the problem, though, a very small percentage of them really know the size of their own Year 2000 efforts as yet.

Aren't purchased package software products already Year 2000 compliant?

Not true! Until very recently, vendors were not required to make their software and products Year 2000 compliant. There are now national efforts to publicize those vendors whose programs are truly Year 2000 compliant.

Since the Year 2000 problem is an Information Technology problem, is there any reason for users to be involved in the Year 2000 project?

Not true! Desktop computers have proliferated into every area of business, individual computer users often develop their own databases and their own custom systems. These will all need to be assessed for potential problems. Since most currently used desktop computers will not correctly handle the Year 2000 date, each computer user must be aware and prepared with a plan for either replacing their hardware and/or software, or prepared to make some changes.

What is this "Program Office" I keep hearing about?

Many organizations are creating Year 2000 Program Offices, whose responsibilities will normally include Year 2000 policies, procedures, guidelines, analysis, reporting, costs and risk management.

If the Program Office will define mission critical deadlines and costs, individual operating departments do not need to make plans or allocate resources to the Year 2000 project.

Not true! Each department must determine the level of impact to their business operations. Being part of the Program Office's steering committee(s), will help the department stayed informed. Since many departments have built their own desktop (PC) applications (which may be independent of the corporate IS/IT department), they face the same issues of inventory, assessment, planning, testing and implementation. Examples of independent applications are local mailing lists/databases and internal spreadsheets.

Source: Questions & Answers from IMRI's Year 2000 training program

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT THESE TESTS ON A NETWORK SYSTEM.

If you have a weak heart, don't like taking risks, hate roller coasters or are not sure you can recover properly, DO NOT ATTEMPT THESE TESTS WITHOUT EXPERT HELP!

No warranties are provided with these tests. We give no guarantees or assurances that these will not harm your system. We assume NO liability for fixing any problem you may create by running these tests. If your computer locks up or these tests create problems for your computer, you are on your own.

NOTE: If you are willing and able, within 5 minutes of heart-stopping anxiety you can get an up-close-and-personal perspective on the challenges involved.

For a free program that will test your PC, see National Software Testing Laboratories (NSTL) - http://www.nstl.com/html/ymark_2000.html (no warranties given on this program either).

Try it for Yourself - Test Your PC or Mac

Desktop Compliance Test - For PCs:

1. From your Windows 3.1 Program Manager Desktop menu select Main. [From Windows 95, select Start, then Settings, then Control Panel]

2. From Main select Control Panel.

3. From the Control Panel select Date/Time.

4. Using the up/down arrows:

• Set the date to 12/31/99.
• Set the time to 11/59/01 (minutes and seconds are arbitrary).

5. Close the dialog box.

6. Select the Date/Time icon again.

7. The date should be 12/31/99 and the time should be advancing.

8. Wait until the date changes (should roll over to 1/1/00).

9. If the date doesn't change correctly your PC isn't Year 2000 compliant. You can set the date to 1/1/00 and continue test at Step 11 if desired, but date will fail.

10. If the date is correct continue test.

11. Close Date/Time dialog box.

12. Close Control Panel and Main. You should be at Program Manager Desktop. [In Windows 95, you should be at the main desktop].

13. Create and save a new file (select Microsoft Word, for example).

• Enter anything into the test file.
• Select File from the menu bar.
• Select Save As from the pull down menu.
• Enter the File Name in the highlighted blue box (ex: y2ktest.doc).
• Select a Directory to store the file.
• Select OK (double click on the OK).

14. Select File from the menu bar.

15. Select Close from the pull down menu.

16. Exit Microsoft Word (for example).

17. Select File Manager from menu bar. [In Windows 95, select File Explorer.]

18. Select Directory where the file was stored.

19. Select View from the menu bar.

20. Select All File Details [or Details] from the pull down menu.

21. Highlight the file you created.

22. Verify that the date the file was created is correct (1/1/00). If incorrect (1/1/:0 for example) your PC is not Year 2000 compliant.

23. Delete the test file (select File, select Delete from the pull down menu, select YES from the next three dialog boxes). [Or, highlight the file and press the DELETE key]

24. Exit File Manager. [or, File Explorer]

25. Reset date and time to the correct date/time.

26. Restart your system.

[In Windows 95, restarting your computer may make your computer think that you have a hardware error, causing it to restart in Safe Mode. If so, check or enter the correct date, then restart again. It should start up properly this time and ask you to verify the date.]

Another Test:

To determine if your system suffers the Year 2000 CMOS RTC flaw, from a DOS prompt set the date and time as below.

Power off test:

1. C:>DATE 12-31-1999
2. C:>TIME 23:59
3. Power off the system, wait more than one minute,
4. Power on the system. Allow the system to boot.
5. Check the DOS date. It should read 01-01-2000. If it does not (usually 01-04-1980) your machine has the flaw.

Power on test:

1. C:>DATE 12-31-1999
2. C:>TIME 23:59:30
3. Wait for more than one minute.
4. Check that the DOS year has changed to 2000.
5. Reboot. The DOS year should still be 2000. If it does not, your machine has the flaw.

Desktop Compliance Test - For Macs:

1. From the Control Panel select "Setting Date And Time."

2. Using the up/down arrows:

• Set the date to 12/31/99.
• Set the time to 11/59/01 (minutes and seconds are arbitrary).

3. Select OK or CLOSE the dialog box.

4. Select "Setting Date And Time" again.

5. The date should be at 12/31/99 and the time should be advancing.

6. Wait until the date changes (should roll over to 01/01/00).

7. Time should be advancing.

8. Close the dialog box.

9. Create and save a file.

• Select the Apple icon from the menu bar.
• Select the file type (ex: Microsoft Word) from pull down menu.
• Select File from the menu bar.
• Select New from the pull down menu.
• Select the desired Template (ex: Normal).
• Enter anything into test file.
• Select File from menu bar.
• Select Save or Save As from pull down menu (save to your Desktop).
• Enter the document (file) name (ex: testy2k doc).
• Select Save.

10. Select File from the menu bar.

11. Select Quit from the pull down menu.

12. Highlight the file you created from the Desktop.

13. Select File from the menu bar.

14. Select Get Info from the pull down menu.

15. Verify that the file create date is Jan 1, 2000.

16. If the file create date is correct your MAC computer is Year 2000 compliant . If the crate date is not correct your MAC is not compliant.

17. Delete the test file (drag the file icon to Trash can).

18. Reset the date and time to today's date and the correct time.

Source: The tests above are from the "Federal Year 2000 Guidance Package" [Comments about Window 95 added, based on our experience.]

For a free program that will test your system, see National Software Testing Laboratories (NSTL) - http://www.nstl.com/html/ymark_2000.html - no warranties given on this program either.

  Organizations

• "Project 2000™ The Clock is Ticking. . ." Information Management Resources Inc., 940 South Coast Drive, Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA (949) 852-5101
• hpa.2000 [at] airmail.net, Harvard, Porter & Associates; 12300 Ford Road Suite 450, Dallas TX 75324 (972) 488-8401 (web site due up in July 1997). HPA provides Year 2000 assessment programs and services to major clients in the Fortune 750. In the past few years, they have reviewed 250 million lines of code!
• ANSI X12 Standards available from: DISA (Data Interchange Standards Association of America), PO Box 630967 Baltimore, MD 21263
• Capers Jones, Chairman, Software Productivity Research, Inc., One New England Executive Park, Burlington MA 01803-5005 (617) 273-0140 ext. 102
• Information Technology Association of America, 1616 North Ft. Myer Drive Suite. 1300, Arlington VA 22209 (703) 522-5055
• International Data Corporation: Series of Reports on Year 2000 Problem, includes executive surveys, insurance industry IS survey, vendor summaries, competitive analysis reports and Year 2000 financing and costs. IDC, 5 Speen St., Framingham MA 01701 (508) 872-8200

Internet Resources 

• Audit Serve, Inc. - http://www.auditserve.com
• California 2000 - http://www.year2000.ca.gov
• CIO Magazine's Year 2000 Forum - http://www.cio.com/forums/year2k.html
• ComLinks Electronic Magazine - http://www.comlinks.com
• Community Impact of Year 2000 - http://www.compinfo.co.uk/y2k/communty.htm
• Dumbest Things Said About the Year 2000 http://www.duh-2000.com/
• Gartner Group - http://www.gartner.com
• Gary North's Year 2000 web site (organized by industry) - http://www.garynorth.com
• IBM - http://www.software.IBM.com/year2000
• Information Management Resources Inc. http://www.imri.com/
• Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) - http://www.itaa.org
• Investor Information - http://www.y2kinvestor.com
• J.P Morgan - http://www.jpmorgan.com
• Management Support Technology Corp. - http://www.mstnet.com/YEAR2000/yr2000.htm
• Managerial Year 2000 information - http://www.y2k.com
• National Software Testing Laboratories - http://www.nstl.com (offers a free PC testing program)
• RightTime Inc. - http://rampages.onramp.net/~gtbecker
• Texas Year 2000 - http://www.state.tx.us/year2000/
• The MITRE Corporation - http://www.mitre.org/research/y2k
• Time Bomb 2000 (a book about the personal consequences of Year 2000) http://www.yourdon.com/books/fallback/fallbackhome.html
• US Air Force - "Federal Year 2000 Guidance Package" http://infosphere.safb.af.mil/~jwid/fadl/world/y2k.htm
• US Army - http://www.army.mil/army-y2k
• US General Services Administration - http://www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/mks/yr2000/y201toc1.htm
• US Marine Corps - http://issb-www1.mqg.usmc.mil/year2000/index.html
• US Navy - http://www.nismc.navy.mil/horizon/year2000/year2000.htm
• Year 2000 Home Page - http://www.year2000.com (Peter deJager)
• Year 2000 Information Network - http://web.idirect.com/~mbsprog/

Links to many other government and private resources are listed on the Year 2000 web sites

This page is http://www.itstime.com/jul97.htm             Printer-friendly version

Page updated: May 11, 2023