Sitting on the Locomotive of a Train Headed Right off the Cliff
Overly dramatic? Possibly. On target? Dead on.
These last two days have brought a point to light with this product we're trying to integrate into the Shop that is a show-stopper, and we didn't find it out until a week and a half from the completion of all development related to the major deliverables.
Basically, it's insufficient for our needs and we didn't see it until we're virtually done and have spent literally dozens of man-years on the integration. It's like building a car only to find that it's engine is too small to actually move the chassis, and no way to make it bigger.
Major problems.
The vendor is all but saying "Sorry, that's the best we can do for you", and the management tram is scrambling because they know the next question that's going to be asked is "Why didn't you see this coming?" Good question. I wonder why they didn't.
Oh, hey, I know... because they no longer value judgements here - only answers to questions they phrase and then they make the decisions thinking they have all the knowledge necessary. After a while, we stopped trying to do, and moved into a simple reactionary phase. That's all they wanted anyway.
So now we're all sitting on this train... too late to get off, it's a week before the deadline. No way the vendor is going to supply a fix, they've known about this from another customer for 18 months and done nothing about it. Nope... it's a train wreck, all right, and we're stuck on the top of it.
Well... at least I'll have a good view of the fall.