Ricky & Stick - You're Deploying More Than Just Software
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There are dozens of stories about glitches in deploying software systems: everything from insufficient memory or too-slow hardware to incompatible disk drives and the glare from fluorescent light bulbs. And there really have been such errors.
Some of these glitches are truly difficult to see in advance, at least until you've been burned once or twice. There are, for instance, some thorny logistical issues, things like the length of supply chains, or the time needed to replenish needed items. You may think, for instance, that selling lemonade is your real job; but you can't sell it without glasses and ice. And for Ricky and Stick, their task was made significantly more difficult because of how far they had to run back to get those glasses and ice, while the lemonade sat in the sun and poor Bob stayed thirsty.
As with almost any story about deployment, the culprit is focus, since we all tend to focus on the system being built, and on its requirements, its features, its design. In so doing, it's all too easy to neglect many things that are inherently boring to most software engineers -- a lot of things that software depends on are not really software things. But someone has to worry whether the extension cord is long enough, and someone needs to think about whether the chairs are too small.
Bottom line: No matter how spiffy the software is, if the people in the field aren't able to use it, it does them no good. What else is necessary? Have the users been given all the additional tools they need? Have they been trained properly? and other similar questions. As with poor Bob, there may be some great-looking lemonade right in front of them, but they'll be thirsty until the glasses arrive.
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