No, not literally. Rather, do you have any red tape horror stories of policies that affected your ability to produce quality software? I’m not talking about general human resources or systems administration policies like this question, but policies that were directly targeted at the development process, such as bad source control policies, testing procedures, or bug tracking processes.
Please, no holy wars such as indents vs. spaces or bracing styles, but rather examples of loathsome bureaucracy, like the TPS reports of legend.
This is somewhat relevant to me as I’ve been reviewing my group’s development process, and I’d like to see (for context) some of the worst processes that you’ve had to deal with. When does a structured policy or process go too far?
As a contractor, I’ve often had to file three separate time and expense reports.
Our official report used for invoicing.
Our project-specific fine-grained report. It has to match the aggregate invoicing report. And, it’s available to project managers two weeks before the numbers from the invoices.
Out customer’s activity reports. These have to match the aggregate invoicing also. THe customer’s accounting folks need this to confirm our invoices. Wait, didn’t I create the invoices, also?
Let’s not forget the need for two status reports (ours and the customers.)