Everything is critical



  • My department has been building a new application, 2 years in the making, to be deployed within 5 days. The sponsoring user has been bombarding us with tweaks, feature changes, new functionality and changes that affect every single row of data in the database, and plans to continue doing so right up until we deploy ("Everything is critical: there will be no leaving of features for a point release"). Given that this has turned into hourly releases, the QA team can't keep up, and is essentially being circumvented. My boss bucked it up to the sponsoring user who, in effect, said "too bad, deal with it". My boss, being the reasonable guy that he is, warned the sponsor that the more we change without testing, the less stable it will be on go-live day. He then called a 2 minute meeting with all of us to let us know that he understands the futility of working like this, and that he knows there will be failures because of it, but that we should try to keep our collective chin up and do the best we can.

    Ok, that sort of gets the pressure off because it's expected that a glitch or two will slip through. However....

    our stuff is used for IRS reporting, and those folks tend to be picky about all the numbers matching between us and those we represent.

    Imagine if you will, the following conversation:

    IRS:     Your numbers don't match those you represent; we will be auditing you to death
    Sponsor: I requested all the functionality the IRS required; we are not at fault; talk to IT
    IT:      But he only gave us 15 minutes to do the work and no time to test it
    IRS:     We don't give a F--- ... the audit goes on
    Sr Mgmt: Sponsor, you are hereby promoted to Supreme Ruler of WTF-oscity
    


  •  Just be prepared to be the scapegoat. File a formal complaint for future reference. Other than that just see how it plays out, once you have official documents you at least can pin the blame on somone else like the manager who is making all these critical requests.

    Then the convo will look like this:

    IRS:     Your numbers don't match those you represent; we will be auditing you to death
    Sponsor: I requested all the functionality the IRS required; we are not at fault; talk to IT
    IT: But he only gave us 15 minutes to do the work and no time to test it. I have file formal complaints and stated numerous times that this sort of thing will happen.
    IRS:     We don't give a F--- ... the audit goes on
    Sr Mgmt: Sponsor, you are hereby promoted to Supreme Ruler of WTF-oscity
     
    If you are lucky the IRS will blame someone else. 

     



  • Actually, all communication about this junk is done over email, and I kept it all, so I'm covered.

    Thankfully, most people haven't learned to make stupid/illegal requests via e-mail start with the subject line: "Confidential to Counsel: xxx"



  •  @dlikhten said:

     Just be prepared to be the scapegoat. File a formal complaint for future reference. Other than that just see how it plays out, once you have official documents you at least can pin the blame on somone else like the manager who is making all these critical requests.

    Then the convo will look like this:

    IRS:     Your numbers don't match those you represent; we will be auditing you to death
    Sponsor: I requested all the functionality the IRS required; we are not at fault; talk to IT
    IT: But he only gave us 15 minutes to do the work and no time to test it. I have file formal complaints and stated numerous times that this sort of thing will happen.
    IRS:     We don't give a F--- ... the audit goes on
    Sr Mgmt: Sponsor, you are hereby promoted to Supreme Ruler of WTF-oscity
     
    If you are lucky the IRS will blame someone else. 

     

     Ahhh to be so young and naive....


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