Most of us would consider that nightmare scenario to work in. The closer to startup life you are, the less that exists. Smaller organizations die if they have t

Most of us would consider that nightmare scenario to work in. The closer to startup life you are, the less that exists. Smaller organizations die if they have that kind of dysfunction. When everything succeeds, there's no problem. When it fails but is salvageable, it's a giant fingerpointing exercise that makes solving the actual problems twice as long, but ultimately has no consequences for the processes or people. When things truly fail, people are thrown under the bus because they "didn't follow process." Management is unscathed. And each part of the process is logical as to how it was developed. Because once a system is large enough, it develops enough scars that say "we won't fail again in that way." - and all failures are because the process wasn't followed. Then, IT is outsourced because it's too expensive. The outsourced system openly skirts much of the process, but can't get the information necessary to build the right product and is seen as a cost center. Eventually, with enough failures, the trust is degraded and the IT is brought back in house. The cycle repeats. You wrote it very well.