Dog Shelter Team built a budget forecast tool with hardcoded 2019 rates

“Sales already promised it.”— Sofia, Dog Shelter Team

Reason:

Allegedly because the process has 12 steps, 5 of which are "send an email". Started as copy of copy of Stock_list_final.xlsx with a script attached.

Built by:

Sofia, the management assistant

Build time:

8 minutes

Built with:

React, Vite and enthusiasm

Database:

a vector database containing invoices for reasons

Authentication:

permissions are checked by asking "should this person be here?"

Deployment:

deployed behind a Cloudflare Tunnel from Chen's laptop

Responsible:

Chen, who insists they are not the owner

Documentation:

a Confluence page linking to another Confluence page

Security situation:

production secrets are in Git history

Future disaster:

It will fail during the year-end close.

Age: 53 days · originally expected to last 2 months · 2 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 19 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 4 departments depend on it, 26% chance of becoming business critical, €4k per year.