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How not to rollout a new software product

kmoorevs15-Aug-15 6:39

kmoorevs

15-Aug-15 6:39

I got back late last night from a customer location. It was a six hour drive home to recover from one of the worst planned software rollouts I have been a part of. The project already had a tight deadline when the customer moved up the launch by a full month.

It has been non-stop since mid-April on this project, during which we got very little feedback from the client despite having the application available for testing and approval for the last four months. Originally, we were to have 10 pilot sites for a month and phase in the remaining 50 sites on a schedule. Instead, we got 1 which did a really lousy job of actually using the application through a two-week test period providing very little feedback...not to mention there was not phase-in schedule and we went live with all 60 sites yesterday. OMG | :OMG:

I figured it might be a little hectic, and we might have a few hiccups, but I was totally unprepared for the onslaught of phone calls about problems they were having. Two people were fielding the back to back phone calls and bombarding me with questions and giving me post-it notes with issues, all reporting major problems with the software. It didn't take long to figure out that a database join in a stored proc was to blame...the day before, the client had asked for some of the options to be removed from a setup screen. Since those options were isolated to a database table and were no longer needed, a developer (who I shall not name here) thought it would be a good idea to comment out the code that created the record in the now defunct table...you know, save a transaction, and all that unnecessary processing...

By the time we caught the error and fixed it, the issue had been compounded when the users failed to see the new item in the list and assumed it didn't get created (can you say duplicates?) This of course, led to confusion when the real problem was corrected, only to now reveal the ugly consequences which now have to be cleaned up over the weekend...not to mention fixing quite a few programming/design flaws that helped lead to the chaos. Sigh | :sigh:

I generally keep my composure, but by 4 PM (knowing I had a 6 hour drive home) I reached a breaking point and posed the rhetorical question to those with hearing distance 'Does anyone have a gun!!!'... thinking 'uh-ho, that was supposed to be my inner voice!...did I really just say that out loud?'

I suppose it could be worse...half of the sites were able to get through it without a problem. Smile | :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse

Re: How not to rollout a new software product

Ron Anders15-Aug-15 7:11

Ron Anders

15-Aug-15 7:11

Dude.....

Re: How not to rollout a new software product

CDP180215-Aug-15 8:24

CDP1802

15-Aug-15 8:24

kmoorevs wrote:
...from one of the worst planned software rollouts I have been a part of...

kmoorevs wrote:
but I was totally unprepared for the onslaught of phone calls about problems they were having

kmoorevs wrote:
providing very little feedback...not to mention there was not phase-in schedule and we went live with all 60 sites yesterday

kmoorevs wrote:
...not to mention fixing quite a few programming/design flaws that helped lead to the chaos.

kmoorevs wrote:
led to confusion when the real problem was corrected, only to now reveal the ugly consequences which now have to be cleaned up over the weekend...

Now I know where you work. What makes you think they ever plan anything? Just assign every task to a different underling with a minimum of information / documentation / specifications. Project management by hand waving at its best.

kmoorevs wrote:
'Does anyone have a gun!!!'

Not so quick! Wait until the hand wavers figure out how all this is actually your fault.

Tar and feather them, throw them out of the guild and then out of the town, I say.

The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here

This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.

"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."

If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.

Re: How not to rollout a new software product

DJ van Wyk16-Aug-15 20:55

DJ van Wyk

16-Aug-15 20:55

kmoorevs wrote:
planned software rollouts

Planning is for people who don't know what they're doing. Poke tongue | ;-P

kmoorevs wrote:
testing and approval for the last four months

Testing is for people who don't know what they're doing. Poke tongue | ;-P

kmoorevs wrote:
half of the sites were able to get through it without a problem

Probably the half that didn't use the system. Confused | :confused:

I hope you use this a an 'I told you so' next time a customer doesn't play along before the next deployment.

My plan is to live forever ... so far so good

Re: How not to rollout a new software product

BrainiacV17-Aug-15 4:38

BrainiacV

17-Aug-15 4:38

kmoorevs wrote:
using the application through a two-week test period providing very little feedback

Welcome to reality.

I sometimes think users won't report problems because they fear it would make them seem foolish. Instead they give us the lame excuse that they didn't have time to test or if they did test, they didn't have time to communicate their problems.

Our most frustrating times were when they'd say, "I was doing something and it gave an error." Do you remember what you were doing? "No." Did you write down the error message? "No." Do you remember what the error message said? "No." And then they'd ask, "When will it be fixed?" (That would be when I'd want a gun)

Right behind all that (if we were doing a new version) would be, "It doesn't work like the old program." (Duh) "It's too confusing." (Because it doesn't work like the old program)

I'd rather train new people on the new program than retrain old users on the new program.

Psychosis at 10
Film at 11

Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

Re: How not to rollout a new software product

Kirk 1038982117-Aug-15 6:16

Kirk 10389821

17-Aug-15 6:16

Wow,
This stuff still happens in todays world. AMAZING.

Sorry you got hit by this. But we REQUIRE an absolute code freeze for 1 week before going live.
This is for everyones safety.

Also, we schedule weekly review meetings. Their team needs to tell us what they have and have not tested/validated and signed off on. If they fail to do their part, it delays the project.

I feel for you. But I value my life and health too much to be pushed into doing things the wrong way.
I wish all IT people would push back against unreasonable customers. Nobody would demand that their wives have children in 5 months because the timing does not work for them in 9.

Best of luck.

My birthday is tomorrow!

Brisingr Aerowing15-Aug-15 3:42

Brisingr Aerowing

15-Aug-15 3:42

What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.

Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???

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