Eighteen months after a good launch, nobody has announced that anything is wrong. But a spreadsheet has appeared beside the system, the unusual cases have moved back into chat, and a change request has been sitting for a quarter.
A system with no owner does not fail. It gets worked around.
What is covered
- What decay actually looks like, and why none of it reaches you as a complaint
- The four stage sequence, and the one stage where a fix still costs ten minutes
- Three questions to answer before go-live, and why they cost an afternoon before and a negotiation after
- Who owns the operating outcome, as distinct from who owns the software
- Process ownership defined, and the ten second test that settles it
- The five things an owner holds, and the two hours a month it takes
- Four answers that sound like ownership and name nobody