Cam Newton’s Post-Superbowl Presser Sounds Like EVERY postmortem on a failed IT project.
I read Miller’s piece on Cam Newton’s post-game press conference and it rang all sorts of bells for me. Sounds like every post-mortem on…
I read Miller’s piece on Cam Newton’s post-game press conference and it rang all sorts of bells for me. Sounds like every post-mortem on every failed IT project that I ever sat through. With apologies to Cam Newton and Scott T. Miller of ESPN, enjoy the following:
Chief Architect Cam Developer kept his post project comments short, with the disappointment from the failed ERP implementation still fresh. Manager’ questions italicized when they could be heard.
What’s your message to management and company employees?
“It’s tough to find good development talent, so we’ll be back on other projects”
Ron [management] said that other developers two years ago had a tough time writing an iOS app and they bounced back. Do you take that to heart?
“No iOS is for toy applications”
Can you put a finger on why the project was unsuccessful?
“Got outplayed by the ERP consultants.”
Is there a reason why?
“Got outplayed, bro.”
Was it pretty much what you had seen on from the demo? Anything different they put in for this implementation?
“Nothing different.”
Do we sometimes forget that enterprise software vendors can still take apart the customers on projects?
“No.”
What did your manager say after he shut the project down?
“He told us a lot of things.”
Anything in particular that was memorable?
“Nope.”
Obviously you’re disappointed. On the biggest implementations it’s difficult, I know.
[nods head]
Did you see anything during this project that you didn’t expect?
They just didn’t have most of the features that they showed us in the demo. I don’t know what you want me to say. They out-negotiated us on the contract, and that’s what it comes down to. We had our opportunities to get this system live. It wasn’t nothing special that they did. We botched data loads, we got business processes wrong, messed up security settings, threw errant transactions. That’s it.
Can you put into words the disappointment you feel right now?
“Not really, they never fire programmers, so I’ll just work on another project”
Did [the ERP vendor] change anything in the latest release to make it harder to go live?
“No.”
I know you’re disappointed not just for yourself, but for your devops team. It’s got to be real tough.
[shakes head] “I’m done man.”