Quality Assurance built Excel with a login screen

“The data isn't that sensitive.”— Daniel, Quality Assurance

Reason:

Allegedly because the audit is in 10 weeks. Built during an offsite instead of the thing they were asked to build.

Built by:

Daniel, a field technician

Build time:

51 minutes

Built with:

an Electron app, for a form

Database:

an in-memory dictionary. Restarts are exciting.

Authentication:

the write-only account can also read

Deployment:

running from an image tagged final-final

Responsible:

a steering committee that has not met in 11 months

Documentation:

a Miro board with 180 sticky notes

Security situation:

all users technically have admin permissions

Future disaster:

It will hold the only copy of Stock_list_backup.xlsx.

Age: 105 days · originally expected to last 4 weeks · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 105 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: 692 users, 53% chance of becoming business critical, alive 4x longer than intended.