Hmmm. Sounds like every other mission critical emergency project in dire need of leadership, design and development. Perceived need way ahead of actual need, an

Hmmm. Sounds like every other mission critical emergency project in dire need of leadership, design and development. Perceived need way ahead of actual need, and legacy hiring practices (degree Requirements for legacy coders with 10 years experience and a degree, ha) not realistic to effectively recruit talented resources. Job interview should include - what’s the definition of a legacy system? Has anyone ever seen an emergency mission and time critical project where the SDLC WASN’T the first thing sacrificed for expediency? And the second is QA & testing - their delivery date remains fixed while development slips and slips. The point is, if you don’t have leadership that has been there done that, knows what is coming, is solving tomorrow’s issues (like finding and hiring resources) so when the project gets to that point, the resources are there and ready, then you are in the false start phase that will continue until you admit it, and begin again with refreshed plan and clear minds. Most SDLC’s do not recognize the false start as a very important first phase that must happen when a time critical emergency project is the only thing that can save the day. How long that phase lasts is dependent on how long it takes you to bring in the right leadership team to take control and begin anew. Since they are in panic mode with the Governor pleading for “COBALT” programmers you know this is in the Coming off the rails / false start phase. Some things you can’t short circuit around and luck out. not on really important stuff. It takes some good minds with excellent experience to noodle out what needs to happen, how to make it happen, line up the political and technical ducks and make it happen. This is a technology project using a rock solid mainframe programming language, COBOL. Don’t belittle it. Many of the nation’s largest banks still use COBOL based systems to process their mission critical applications, so quit whining about old mainframe technology being so obsolete. Those of us who have been there fully understand there are no longer many or any users who understand what entire systems do anymore - because those legacy systems have evolved over the years, projects all justified by headcount reductions in the user community. That means all that knowledge is now encapsulized within that cobol code in those legacy systems. So. If someone needs help responding to critical needs that were not anticipated (like an increase 100 or 1000 or 10,000 times the workload - New Jersey?), technology alone is not going to solve your problem, not quickly enough. You need many more people to do the processing of paying the unemployed until technology can catch up and take over. Pay me now or pay me later I always say. If you don’t believe my predictions, Call me when you become enlightened and I can help you then. Until then, good luck. PS: A legacy system is every system in production!