test please delete

[BrowneIssue]

The Senior Programmer had had the foresight to see that config management and change control and rollback procedures would be essential to make this style of working successful and safe for the business.

[BrowneIssue]

So the first 12 months of effort was spent writing a bespoke change control environment and config management system!

[BrowneIssue]

Meanwhile a project analyst (a systems / business analyst hybrid) was wandering around the business areas & senior management & other contacts (we would know call 'stakeholders') to see what the requirements might be and what benefits could be achieved.

[BrowneIssue]

We would know call what the project analyst did the project initiation and startup.

[BrowneIssue]

Those 12 months spent identifying stakeholders, potential benefits, developing a development environment, engaging the user areas, setting up the communications processes, working out how to handle the risks were 12 months very well spent.

[BrowneIssue]

As a developer it was strange to be working on the tools and environment we would be using to develop a solution - that we did not know much about!

[BrowneIssue]

The system we developed (and enhanced umpteen times a year) was handling £600m of spend per annum.

[BrowneIssue]

Prior to it going in, everything was done on paper.

[BrowneIssue]

Afterwards, users were saying they could not work out how they had ever done the job on paper, middle managers were getting huge bonuses because of the savings they were making and senior management were using the savings being made to replace major central corporate systems.

[BrowneIssue]

So it was a hugely successful project and demonstrably so.