Operations built a project status dashboard

“It's read-only except for updates.”— Chen, Operations

Reason:

Because the bug was closed because nobody replied for 88 days. With a roadmap in the README, last touched 88 days ago.

Built by:

Chen, a product owner

Build time:

2 evenings

Built with:

Power Apps, licensed to one employee

Database:

DynamoDB with one item containing everything

Authentication:

the audit log records "something changed"

Deployment:

behind a CDN for an app only used inside one building

Responsible:

Priya, who thought somebody else owned it

Documentation:

comments in the code explaining what the code used to do

Security situation:

the threat model is "why would anyone attack us?"

Future disaster:

It will discover the backup password left with Chen.

Age: 54 days · originally expected to last 14 days · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 54 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 4 departments depend on it, 83 users, alive 4x longer than intended.