There was this company (shall remain nameless) where the product was always "around the corner". Just one more week or two! Yes it doesn't work right now, but these are minor things, let us iron out the final bugs!
This went on for almost two years.
Leadership being non-technical, they didn't know whether what the "technical team" was telling them is true or not. They couldn't check, but were not idiots, so eventually suspected bullshit. So they hired us as "crisis consultants", to do an audit and put things back on track.
Needless to say, we had to scrap everything. Which, it turns out, was about half a dozen unfinished PHP scripts and some apache configs... the result of ~4 man-years of work!
The main employee squirmed and lied and lashed back during meetings. Not a pleasant experience at all. For anyone involved. When the true horror of the situation became apparent, they had to be let go.
Of course, this "worked out" only because we had the leadership's full backing (they really felt more shameful than angry, on account of their mismanagement), and because we could stand our ground technically. Now what to do if you're a grunt employee, without good access to leadership, observing such bullshit unfold... difficult. Chances are, the bullshitters are better at politics & smooth talking than you are, so confrontations are risky.
There was this company (shall remain nameless) where the product was always "around the corner". Just one more week or two! Yes it doesn't work right now, but these are minor things, let us iron out the final bugs!
This went on for almost two years.
Leadership being non-technical, they didn't know whether what the "technical team" was telling them is true or not. They couldn't check, but were not idiots, so eventually suspected bullshit. So they hired us as "crisis consultants", to do an audit and put things back on track.
Needless to say, we had to scrap everything. Which, it turns out, was about half a dozen unfinished PHP scripts and some apache configs... the result of ~4 man-years of work!
The main employee squirmed and lied and lashed back during meetings. Not a pleasant experience at all. For anyone involved. When the true horror of the situation became apparent, they had to be let go.
Of course, this "worked out" only because we had the leadership's full backing (they really felt more shameful than angry, on account of their mismanagement), and because we could stand our ground technically. Now what to do if you're a grunt employee, without good access to leadership, observing such bullshit unfold... difficult. Chances are, the bullshitters are better at politics & smooth talking than you are, so confrontations are risky.