Dog Shelter Team built a knowledge base with a search that does not search

“It's only for one department.”— Finance Business Partner

Reason:

Officially because the vendor quoted 11 months and three workshops. Quietly rolled out to five countries.

Built by:

Thomas, a key account manager

Build time:

5 evenings

Built with:

a Slack bot doing database writes

Database:

an Oracle database nobody can explain the licensing for

Authentication:

the security model is a locked office door

Deployment:

behind a domain registered for €5 during a workshop

Responsible:

Head of Operations, who calls it "the little tool"

Documentation:

a Miro board with 201 sticky notes

Security situation:

the temporary firewall rule is 12 months old

Future disaster:

It will email customer data to a market you do not operate in.

Age: 2.7 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 4 owners so far · survived 3 reorganisations · last meaningful change 210 days ago

Rated legendary mostly because: 897 users, 98% chance of becoming business critical, 3 departments depend on it.