A bad day at the agency

Tom’s phone rang at 3:58 on a Friday afternoon at his agency. The phone was on his desk, and he had been talking with his colleagues in another cubicle. Their development team had been working on a software project for a client. The first few releases had gone off without a hitch, and the customers were delighted. The customers were so happy that they even sent over a boatload of new feature requests and signed a contract extension. It was shortly after the contract extension that things started to turn ugly. Tom’s development team was way behind schedule. Implementing the last round of feature requests had left their client’s product unstable and it was crashing often. Tom was currently in a code review meeting. The group had concluded the project’s code was in dire trouble. Their management, in an effort to steal a quick win and impress their new client, had ordered the team to ship the first prototype. The next few releases came...