People in Group A responded that their job was only to build the file, that Quality Assurance had signed off on it, and that Group B should have checked it before using it. As an outsider, it was obvious that the conversation should have immediately turned to resolution and prevention, rather than arguing over who was at fault. However, that experience was an eye-opener about cost and schedule overruns. I realized I had become so used to operating in an environment of continuous process improvement that I assumed every project in our company operated similarly. If this story sounds like the software environment in which you work, take a moment to dream about working in a Level 5 organization.
Nobody argues over who is at fault for a problem or who is responsible for a particular task.
While you are dreaming, toss in some well-pleased managers and many proud employees. The IUS is a satellite boost rocket known for its high reliability and accuracy. Unfortunately, things have not always been like this. As a software designer, I have vivid memories of an occasion when I released two versions of my software that contained the same error, then wrote a patch to fix one problem only to have it cause another. During design phases, I remember lying awake at night wondering if my software configuration was correct, if I had tested my changes well enough, or if I had forgotten something.