When Software Goes Wrong—Engaging Your Imagination

In this seventh and final episode about software failures in safety-critical systems, Dr Emma Taylor talks about a number of incidents, from the railway, a medical incident and aircraft.  To encourage you to be creative when you start to think about reasonably foreseeable scenarios—what could possibly go wrong with your complex software-based system.  And what you can do to help design out errors before they cause an incident.

01:42 How to look beyond railway-specific risk analysis to find reasonably foreseeable scenarios

02:48 We must look to the past to see what could happen in the future, and the importance of using your own scenarios

03:37 Soncepts to help you start your own thinking processes

04:36 Common themes, and considerations relevant to software

09:20 Old hardware and software issues—why you should report and record faults

08:24 Looking at other sectors and industries for learning

12:03 How to carry out an effective risk assessment for digital systems

13:18 The consequences of a 2019 software patch, for Class 7XX trains

15:40 You don't need to ask complex questions

15:59 The software patch on the 737-8 Max aircraft that led to hundreds of fatalities

16:43 Software and cyber security—who do you want to let into your house?

Resources in this episode:

Article on the Maersk malware incident
 https://www.i-cio.com/management/insight/item/maersk-springing-back-from-a-catastrophic-cyber-attack 

How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer (a personal view) https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer 

Federal Aviation Authority Updates on Boeing 737 MAX
https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=93206 

Federal Aviation Authority—Boeing 737 MAX Reading Room
 https://www.faa.gov/foia/electronic_reading_room/boeing_reading_room/ 

Boeing's own 737 MAX Updates web page—with links to the plane's validation process: https://www.boeing.com/737-max-updates/ 

ORR: Report following railway power disruption on 9 Aug 2019
https://www.orr.gov.uk/media/10752/download 

 Related resources:

LHSBR Infrastructure Asset Integrity section: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/infrastructure-asset-integrity 

LHSBR Rolling Stock Asset Integrity section: https://www.rssb.co.uk/safety-and-health/leading-health-and-safety-on-britains-railway/rolling-stock-asset-integrity 

The digital bits of a system podcast https://www.orr.gov.uk/guidance-compliance/rail/health-safety/strategy/rm3 

The V-model on Geeks for Geeks.org: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-sdlc-v-model/ 

The V-model for humans on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Model_(software_development)