We had a trouble ticket come in the other day. It did not get immediately worked as the development team was busy. The customer upped the priority of the ticket. A manager asked me for some insight on how we could work this ticket. I said the functionality was one that was complex and not familiar to most of development. So I put down some estimates on how long it would take a developer to get familiar with the functions, how long it would take to ramp upu some test data, and how long it would take to replicate the problem.I thought that was good enough. Later the same manager said we should go ahead with the investigation. What? I figured he might be confused. So I emailed him with the list of other high priority issues I was working. I told him I would work the new one when I finished the other high priority problems. Again I thought that would be the end of the issue.
Next I get some questions from the manager inquiring whether anything had changed since last year. I said that there was a higher volume of data. That statement confused another manager on the email chain. He wondered when we deployed this "higher volume". Then the first manager piped in saying he thought an entire redesign was in order here. Huh?
All of a sudden, all kinds of managers are brainstorming ideas on how to do a redesign. Some of the ideas are downright wacky. Luckily none of this conjecture is being sent to the customer. Eventually we find a new guy to start getting familiar with the code. Finally someone is starting some real work on the problem that will actually result in a fix. Crazy i tell ya.
