WSRcg Services

WSRcg provides expert witness services for litigation involving large-scale system project and software failures. We have provided opinions or testimony in such matters in North America, Europe, Asia, and in courts at all levels including US Federal Courts, Superior Courts, and the Court of Federal Claims, and in arbitration and mediation. As pioneers in the areas of systems development methodology, systems testing and acceptance, and systems contracts, WSRcg experts use their particularly rich experience and diverse expertise to quickly uncover the root causes of why a system and/or project has failed in terms of quality, cost, schedule, functionality and performance.

WSRcg has learned over the past 30 years in over 100 IT, computer, software failure and software project failure matters in North America, Asia, and Europe, that the same underlying causes are important claims in the pleadings/complaints prepared by both parties! These underlying attributes weigh in very heavily as potential root causes in virtually all such failures (and successes).

While in most cases, multiple parties tend contribute to a failure, courts typically hold one party more responsible than the others, and often the determination of liability can be counter-intuitive. To help the court correctly attribute the primary blame for a software or software project failure, it is important to carefully isolate and identify the root cause of failure, which itself depends on the degree to which each of the eleven forces and related decisions played a role in shaping the events of a project.

Our Approach

  • Determine scope of work and opinion areas expected. Document them as working mandates so we all stay focused on counsel’s needs. Changes are discussed and approved with counsel before proceeding.
  • Identify/clarify important issues, events and supporting facts requiring expert analysis and/or expert opinion testimony,
  • Assign the right staff when and as needed
  • Assist counsel in the discovery process:
    • identify types of and specific documents, web-sites, contracts, agreements, minutes, plans, (there’s 64 of them) to be requested in discovery, LINK
    • explain docs meaning/relevance to case,
    • recommend how to best request e-documents so they are produced in its native format and most usable manner,
  • Re-test or test software (if available and critical to the case) to determine degree of conformity with functional, performance, quality & technical specs. Else review the test plan & execution documents, the test logs and defect histories.
  • Interview percipient/fact witnesses and interface with other experts, as required and if requested,
  • Assist counsel in determining deponents; suggest questions to fact/expert witnesses from both sides,
  • Prepare declarations, affidavits, expert & rebuttal reports as requested or required,
  • Assist counsel in preparing demonstrative trial exhibits,
  • Give expert witness testimony at depositions, hearings, and trial.

WSRcg Goes the Extra Mile

  • WSRcg does not address only the basic questions of “What happened? Why? Who caused it? By action or inaction? But also:
    • What risks did it create? What remediation(s) were taken?
    • What was the impact of that decision or no-decision?
    • Was it consistent with the IT meaning of the contract and each party’s intentions at the time the decision was made?
  • The impact of the decision(s) re on-time, on-schedule, on-target development, implementation, & productive use of the system?
  • Our expert reports address and explain the context of the events in the case, including: The IT industry, history, timeline/progression, technologies, alleged panaceas, and its arcane and ever-changing ambiguous terminology;
  • What must the parties have known at the time of the alleged decision/action? About the industry? About each other?
  • Depending on the case and mandates, opine on the:
    • definition/criteria for success for systems & software projects under case specific facts;
    • responsibilities of each party; capabilities of each party; promised vs. staff that showed up
    • guidelines/metrics/standards for evaluating how well each responsibility was met, & the impact on project success/failure;
  • industry standards, statistics & “best practices” for evaluating performance & quality
  • computer system architecture, code structure, documentation, QA plan, test plans/execution completeness, standards compliance;
  • status of systems/software stability when project cancelled; estimate to salvage project/product.

WSRcg addresses the risks known, or should have been known before, during and after project Go-Live including:

  • Project estimation risks
  • people/resource risks; staffing and turnover risks
  • SDLC selection/process risks,
  • requirements risks, (ambiguous; changing, etc.)
  • technology risks,
  • product risks; 3rd party interface risks; data conversion risks
  • project management risks,
  • project organization, support and reporting structure risks,
  • partner selection risks,
  • top management “mandate” risks
  • market and competitive risks,
  • intellectual property (IP) risks.
  • Who had duty to identify, communicate, mitigate such risks?
  • What was done to mitigate or avoid the risks?
  • What were/are the impacts of these risks on the project?