Oakdale Bank: Thwarting the programmer's revenge

Everyone knew that Warren Smathers was on his way up in Oakdale Bank. His grandfather had founded the bank in 1945, and now his father was the president. After receiving an undergraduate degree in computer science, Warren had been hired as a teller and had rotated through several positions before his latest position as manager of information system applications in the consumer banking division.

Just as everyone knew Warren was on his way up, everyone knew that Larry Argol was on his way nowhere. Larry had been a programmer in the bank for 7 years. He was strong technically but had trouble getting along with people. Despite numerous coaching sessions with managers in the bank, he tended to be abrupt and sometimes cruel in his interactions with less-talented employees. For this reason, he had been overlooked for promotions several times. Losing out to the president's son seemed to upset Larry greatly. When Warren tried to clear the air with Larry, Larry acted evasive. Then he suddenly stopped, looked Warren in the eye, and said, "You guys are going to be sorry."

Warren was worried because he could easily imagine the ways Larry could make them sorry. Of the people in the department, Larry had the best understanding of Oakdale Bank's consumer banking information systems. Several of these systems were badly designed and poorly documented. Backup systems existed but were also badly designed. The bank's computer operations were loose and would probably be vulnerable to tampering.

Warren thought about the situation with Larry and met with his father the next day. Recounting the history with Larry, Warren recommended that Larry be fired immediately before he did disastrous damage to the bank's operations. Warren's father replied that was out of the question and said that you just don't fire someone for being angry about not getting a promotion. Warren responded that you also just don't leave angry people on your staff who could shut the bank down with a few lines of code that no one would ever see.

Questions:

1. Explain the conditions that make the bank vulnerable in this situation.

2. Identify things that might have been done to keep the situation from getting to the present point.

3. What would you recommend?

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