The 5 Penny Let-Down

It is hard to imagine live without the satnav. Our parents relied on maps, the mythical sense of direction or simply driving round and round till the destination came up.

The satnav is a brilliant technical achievement. How is it possible that this little device knows exactly where I am and how to get to where I want to be?

There must have been so many brilliant minds involved in getting the satellites into space and getting them to communicate with this thing on my dashboard and calculating the shortest-route from A to B. An unbelievable, technical achievement.
Now we all know about the strength of a chain and its weakest link. So let us talk about the weakest link of the satnav. A suction cup worth a few pennies…You are cruising, confidently following the instructions of the gentle voice. Next you hear the unique sound of a sucker coming loose. The suction cup from the satnav. It is on the floor now, rendering this feat of engineering to useless.

Surely this must be the simplest thing to get right! Is this perhaps the equivalent of the deliberate mistake in Persian hand-made rugs?

SO HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO SOFTWARE?

As with the suction cup of the satnav the same is often true for software. It is sometimes the most trivial of details that make the difference between something brilliant and something mediocre.

This is where a bespoke solution (or a bespoke add-on to standard software) can make a real difference. It is worth trying to come up with a list of the suckers in your business software and imaging what it means if they would actually hold on to the windscreen.