It was the final day for the project and the team was saying goodbye. I had one foot out the door when the Chief Innovation Officer asked me if I’d be interested in a new project they just acquired. When I asked what role he had in mind he replied…
I just need you to get this thing built
The product was some court software that came along with a recent corporate acquisition. In addition, sales had just signed a new customer, the state of South Carolina. My human resources consisted of one subject matter expert, and a senior developer. The dev had no time available to get the updated features added for the Carolina contract, so it was up to myself and the SME. Three months later the SME left for higher ground.
What Does This Application Do?
A twenty year old software product that has no meaningful documentation, sound familiar?
This situation has become so common, the term documentation has devolved into a punchline. But we are professionals, no? We know how to move forward, and besides, it’s not like anyone is going to forget there is no documentation and hold the new development team responsible for a conversion effort that will watch a legacy update transform into a greenfield endeavor. We will simply document as we go and add this effort to our list of deliverables.
Can I Talk To The Customer?
Seems like an odd thing to have to ask but I had to time and time again. As the months rolled by, interested parties began to weigh in on how this large client should be managed and by whom.
This simple failure had devastating impact on the health of the project over it’s three year cycle.
Round 1 Analysis & Recommendation
Sorry but the company and software you purchased will not handle the contract you are trying to honor. At it’s core design the legacy application can only handle a small number of records, and can not support a state-wide model.
Moving Forward With Legacy
Describing the corporate decision…
Over 400 Gaps In The Fit-Gap Report
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
Who Is Managing This Thing?
What’s on second and I don’t know is on third base.
Implementation Before Development
You can’t make this stuff up
A Single Point Of Failure
When job security breeds project paralysis.
Implementing Untested Code
These people still have jobs
SCRUM Without A Backlog
You can’t story point tickets that don’t exist