Hello folks. I want to present a marvelous software development methodology widely employed at WTFglobe, Inc.
A company has a niche product with narrow audience. The product is regarded as good enough, and most of the time is spent maintaining it for existing customers.
A new potential customer with deep pockets hints at a feature that, if present in the software, would make them buy it on the spot. The feature was never there, but sales drones or CEO tell the customer it is there.
Then, a call is made to developers with an IMMEDIATE request to put away whatever they are doing now and work on that new feature, deadline is in two days' time, because that's when a sales pitch presentation is going to be made. The developers are given a hint that the implementation should only look well enough for the presentation purposes and a scripted demo.
The presentation goes well, and the customer buys/licenses the product on the spot.
Fast forward a few months, until that new feature is well forgotten, and a few more, until it's actually needed. The feature is never given budgets to actually implement, despite numerous request that fade into oblivion as nobody of power is willing to hear them.
The development team SUDDENLY gets an angry call from the management that the killer feature, instead of working, processes dummy data conjured from thin air. An exchange follows, similar to this:
Management: the customer depends on this feature and you flopped it!
Development: but you told us to implement it well enough for your sales pitch, and that's what we did.
Management: you misled us! We thought it would be functional then!
Development: we told you it would take two months to properly implement it and that the demo is only a mockup.
Management: you did? Well, can't remember any of it. The client is angry, and you have a week to make it work!
I worked in hell like this for a year, sometimes having to atone for sins of my predecessors, and being told it's my fault those features don't work properly.