This large computer company is months into a new contract to replace IT equipment at a major government agency, says a pilot fish on the team.

But then a problem shows up. "With hundreds of desktops deployed and many hundreds more on order to be shipped, the manager at the configuration center reports system crashes frequently observed during testing after setup," fish says.

In fact, crashes are happening so often that fish is ordered to implement a complete retrofit plan for the desktops that are already in the field — even though those deployed units haven't had a single failure.

Thus begins a series of daily phone conferences with a huge number of managers and technical staff, with rumors of VPs listening on mute.

To read this article in full, please click here