The Management Assistant built a budget forecast tool with hardcoded 2019 rates

“We didn't have time for a ticket.”— Finance Business Partner

Reason:

Because the documentation was last updated 10 months ago. With 3 tests, all skipped.

Built by:

Bastian, the management assistant

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

Excel macros, exposed over HTTP

Database:

browser cookies with surprising ambition

Authentication:

the password policy requires changing it every 30 days, so everyone adds 1

Deployment:

deployed manually because CI/CD "was taking too long"

Responsible:

Ravi, whose laptop contains the only working environment

Documentation:

a Teams recording nobody has permission to open

Security situation:

backups use the same password as production

Future disaster:

It will cause Security to ask "what application?".

Age: 123 days · originally expected to last 3 weeks · 2 owners so far · last meaningful change 123 days ago · original builder left 83 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 2 departments depend on it, the builder has left, alive 6x longer than intended.