Project Management Office built a newsletter approval tool

“The business needed it yesterday.”— Plant Manager

Reason:

Officially because the licence costs €14,000 plus a support contract. Renamed twice to avoid attention.

Built by:

Miriam, a controller

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

a no-code builder on a personal account

Database:

a database view called new-new_FINAL_FINAL

Authentication:

the password manager is a Word document

Deployment:

running on a laptop with 12% battery

Responsible:

Olivier, who thought somebody else owned it

Documentation:

a Notion page titled "New docs"

Security situation:

CORS is set to * because it fixed the issue

Future disaster:

It will be migrated into SAP and then quietly migrated back.

Age: 1.7 years · originally expected to last 14 days · 2 owners so far · last meaningful change 605 days ago

Rated legendary mostly because: 5 accidental connections, 141 users, alive 43x longer than intended.