Almost as soon as this specialized software vendor ships a custom application to a big new customer, someone notices a single line in the requirements document, reports a pilot fish there: The application shall support pooling. “Pooling is an in-house methodology where related items can be aggregated if desired,” fish says.
“The user-interface developer had written about 40 complex queries and embedded them in his client-side application code — all without the pooling concept.”
Oops.
Vendor’s VP of development calls together the team. We have to fix this and get an updated version to the customer right away, before they implement the one they’ve got, he tells the group.
And with that, fish and his co-workers are plunged into a frantic effort to rewrite 40 complex queries into even more complex versions that include the pooling logic.
Developers and testers are working double shifts to get everything done. They’re pulling late-nighters and all-nighters.
And in just under a week, they get the job done.
“We posted the final build to the customer-facing download portal,” says fish. “Finally, some breathing room!”
And that’s when they get a piece of good news — just a little too late to help: “The customer decided to push off implementation until the next quarter, nearly three months away.”
