When gremlins attack, part I
In real life, you never get a do-over. But software inhabits a cartoon world where stressing the system and watching for mistakes makes the product better and better. Do it enough times and you get something really smooth.
I often demo with a version that has not gone through the testing checks applied to software for customers. This lets me exercise the latest features and also works quality control a little harder.
I demoed SmartRate to a prospect the other day over the net. We ran into a few glitches with GoToMeeting. And then the software (seemed to) hit a major bug. CD profits in the demo displayed as negative.
In case you’ve never demoed software as part of a sales call, the experience can be intense. I’d liken it to asking a girl out while drag racing. Adrenalin is coursing through your body and it’s only compounded by your reluctance to visibly break a sweat.
I knew I couldn’t think clearly, but negative profits seemed obviously wrong. Unless Crazy Eddie is running the bank, they probably aren’t losing money by paying out too much on interest.
I latched on to demo rule number one (move past the bugs). Unfortunately, this was right in the heart of the demo, so there was a large portion of the software which I never showed.
Turns out there’s a good reason for negative profits. Wholesale rates have been diving with the subprime mess. This means that CDs which were locked in months ago at pretty high rates are no longer making money (because the bank could get money at lower rates from the wholesale market). Today’s negative profits are a different kettle of fish (to be explained in a different post).
Even though SmartRate worked properly, there was still a problem. If I was flustered during the demo by negative profits, imagine the user hitting this issue during a presentation to the CFO. Good software should not make you sweat. Even if it’s complex.
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