s phone calls when the system is out? External partners should not be ignored at this age EDI. The whole system will fall as easily if EDI partners are not Year 2000 compliant when you are. Formally document the plan, widely distribute and test the plans. Everyone in the organization needs to know what the contingency plan is. 3. Contingency planning should include legal considerations as well. Prepare for damage claims from customers, partners and shareholders. Shareholder lawsuits will be encouraged if management does not adequately disclose Year 2000 problems. And Document Y2K remediation efforts well. A case for testing With passing of time and as the January 1, 2000 nears, testing phase of the Y2K fixes are most likely to be the one to be ignored. The payoff of testing is great and once completed, one can rest easy that all are well. It is not the most fun part of the project by any means but a very important one -- a fix is no good if it does not work. Securities Industry Association is planning for four testing before the final date gets here. Starting March 6, 1999 it will test all members system on four consecutive Saturdays. The first test will mimic Dec 29, 1999, followed in order by Dec. 30, 31, and Jan. 3, 2000(13). According to a Eric Hammond, a technology Analyst, thoroughly testing a year 2000 fix requires that one runs it through three tests: functionality testing, year 2000 testing, and system testing. Mission critical systems should be tested first(12). In the functional testing one makes sure that altered codes work with current date. In the year 2000 testing, an aging data of current data should be tested. In system testing phase all system components are brought together to insure their compliance. System testing is the most time consuming of all the three and generally left behind when time is short(12). Conclusions Management needs to fully understand the depth of the Y2K problem in their organization. Simple ret...
