underdogishere

I have rules regarding what I can and cannot post about on this blog. One of my rules is that I do not post anything about my job or my coworkers. I don't like or enjoy my job, but I'm very good at it, and it pays me very well, and as a result I get to take nice trips and own nice things, and so I don't want to say anything online that might tick someone off and cause me to lose it. So I don't post anything about my job or my coworkers.

Except I can't resist this:

I'm sitting here reading a technical requirements document. This document, which was circulated by our I.T. Department, is thirty-ones pages long, and defines the requirements for a particular software development project. Thirty-one pages of requirements. I'm told that this software is almost ready for deployment. Keep in mind that this software was complex enough to require thirty-one pages of requirements.

All requirements documents have a section titled "Risks," which is supposed to list all the possible opportunites for failure, so we can watch out for them and mitigate them. In this particular document, the risks section is on page eight. There are three risks listed. The second one is...

...I want you to know that I'm not kidding or exaggerating...

...This is word-for-word...

...I'm not making this up...

...are you ready?

The second risk for this project is:

• Have not talked to users of the system -- do not know what the users want.

Labels: Inner Geek