Production built a fleet mileage tracker

“It's only employee data.”— Nadia, Production

Reason:

Honestly? Because the process has 19 steps, 4 of which are "send an email". With 194 users and 71 feature requests.

Built by:

Nadia, a product owner

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

Excel macros, exposed over HTTP

Database:

GitHub Issues. Yes, production data.

Authentication:

the admin password is Lukas123

Deployment:

deployed Friday at 17:00

Responsible:

a Teams channel with 5 active members

Documentation:

a README that begins with "temporary notes"

Security situation:

TLS is disabled because it is "inside the network"

Future disaster:

It will be reported to the data protection officer by a customer.

Age: 34 days · originally expected to last 3 months · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 34 days ago · original builder left 32 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 47% chance of becoming business critical, the builder has left, €20k per year.