For Christ's sake QF! Who does your IT? [QC offer to under 18]

[bPeteb]

Not going to comment on this case but need to ask the question of a supposedly ASX top 50 company - how the f#@k can system maintenance/upgrade/DR test (whatever they are doing today) take a full business day.

I am going to comment, their IT processes and quality appear really poor

I work for one, in IT, and we only ever deploy on weekends. Weekends for most of our customers are their two busiest days. Some deployments take most of a weekend. That's how long it takes. You most likely mean Monday to Friday as a business day but it's now seven days for so many companies. Rock and a hard place for most IT departments.

Back to juddles original question.

Once upon a time you would gather your requirements and your business BA would write your BRD and it would be handed to your inhouse IT BA who would work with your inhouse IT architects and they would write an RDD. All of you would be aware of the social norms, your BAU activities, most probably the legal and regulatory obligations you are obliged to adhere to because you had policy and process that were easy to find.

Now you outsource nearly everything. Unless you write requirements down to literally specifying capitalising correctly, punctuating correctly, align fields, don't use American English, test across all browsers as per policy, meet legislated accessibility obligations, blah blah blah you get bare bones cough. Noone uses 'common sense', Noone offers options. That's not how they're taught. It's possibly not what our bare bones contracts with their employers even allows. They build exactly what has been requested, even if blind Freddy can see the holes through it.

And that's why that email offer may well have not had an age filter built into it...

I need a new job, or a holiday. Luckily this time next week I'll be a day away from that holiday.

 

[RichardMEL]

Several comments here...

re Juddles' offspring... I'd bet anything it's a simple case of the data matching not even being done in terms of the FF record being accessed in terms of the booking and whateve promotion (ie "buy QP access...") was run against that booking ref. If the Customer DOB info is not included in the PNR(which is entirely possible for domestic, I'm not sure) a cross ref via the FF# probably wasn't done. Not an excuse, just a a thought

re IT/Marketing.. the comments above are spot on. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen or been involved with, as a technical person, absolutely stupid systems changes or implementations because the clueless types in marketing signed off and decreed it should be done. Not to say eveyone is clueless, but it happens *A LOT* and those on the coal face in tech are left scratching their heads just waiting for the problems to start and when they do.. guess who gets the blame? Yup.. IT.. not the bozos in Marketing who dreamed it up.

I have a real world case that happened at a certain location recently. They offer the public free wifi, which is common as muck around the world right? We've all used them. More or less they work pretty well within the confines of the ofering(and we all know not to use such services for anything sensitive right? ). Anyhoo so it so transpired that the marketing people DEMANDED that if they are offering free wifi that the public be given a blurb and sign on to a marketing mailing list before they could get onto the free wifi. As irritating as that is, and ridiculous, and of course the number of "[email protected]" email addresses signed up were impressive... the blurb and pages specified by the non technical marketing then broke the devices providing the wireless sign on services to the users, such that various users with Android or IOS phones, Chrome, and Firefox and the like (ie: lots of people out there) got errors and could not use it. Yet Marketing *DEMANDED* this despite IT's objections and the usability issues and eerything. This really happened - very recently.

IT is far from perfect.. I know this very well... and it's easy to blame the beloved Work Experience Kids, but sometimes it's not always their fault (in the end it's usually a combination of factors, and internal politics and cough that wind up causing pain for customers).

Finally re the QFF uprade yesterday being way longer than forecast. Who really knows what happened apart from QF insiders. I can certainly assure that on various upgrades of systems, applications and the like I've worked on, even with testing and so on, unforseen things can occur.Large databases can take 3x as long as expected, or may fall over due to some spurious record, or some unforeseen difference in prod vs test can affect the time it takes... there can be all kinds of things go down that make a joke of an estimate. I'm not defending i at all. I knew it would not be done by 0600, and it wasn't but that's just 25+ years in the industry worth of cynacism rather than any inside knowledge... sometimes "Stuff Happens" even to the best prepared plans. I know, I've been involved in a few howlers.

 

[sumthinfornuthin]

Sorry for being emotive in the title, but really, Qantas need to get their sh_t together. I love Qantas, but they fail in the easiest areas to NOT fail.

How hard is IT these days? As in using that magnificent beast that is the internet and electronic data matching / analysis / understanding that should be central to any company in today's age.

Such simple things are beyond them.

Let me get to my gripe:

My daughter is a QFF member. Any member has to state their date of birth. She is under 18. She has a flight coming up in a few days, travelling solo. And she was just sent an invite to spend $39 to get QP lounge access.

I am half tempted to get her to buy this, then see if they let her in solo to the QP.

Probably would let her in if the computer says so ??

 

[Catweazle]

Dare I say it's not all that uncommon, in my experience, of websites that I frequently visit to get all the more clunky and user-unfriendly after an operation of modernising, sophisicaphising and 'updating'. The VA website was hopeless and QF it seems QF is trying to follow suit. Nice layout, but not so good on the functionality.

In any case, if I were your daughter, I'd buy the lounge pass and appreciate the complimentary booze upon entry if granted. What else, aside from her dear parents, need stop her?

 

[juddles]

.....In any case, if I were your daughter, I'd buy the lounge pass and appreciate the complimentary booze upon entry if granted. What else, aside from her dear parents, need stop her?

Catweazle, she would be lucky to consume $5 worth of booze, let alone the $39 cost. I have a latin american upbringing - I have a slightly different outlook on it to most Aussies (ie trying to keep kids from it).

Even if she was apt to drink heavily, her flight is to BNE, where I also happen to arrive from somewhere else - so we get to drive up to the Sunshine Coast together.

Just as an aside, this was my daughters first trip solo - she went down to Canberra a few days ago. I love that I have had the ability to get my children experienced in air travel - we FF probably take such a skill as a given, but it is not

 

[Catweazle]

Ah, I was only pulling your leg, juddles!

Yes, half the fun of FF is passing on that skill to others, as you say. Many of my friends freak out even at the thought of getting into an aircraft, or wonder what to do at the airport prior to check-in. But when they return from their inaugural trip, their delight is indeed a joy to see!

 

[juddles]

Ah, I was only pulling your leg, juddles!...

I know, and as a dad I don't mind when a fellow AFF'er does that, but noone else.

BTW, the trip I got my daughter BNE-CBR return was using points - it just so happened that the only option down was in J - I didn't want that as I want the little darling to learn to live like normal people :/

In any case, I had advised her that she could slip into the J lounge in BNE, but if picked up for her age, then obviously no-go. She didn't want to even try it, but when she went to buy a bottle of water in the airport and saw the price, suddenly lounge access seemed so much more attractive. She got in no problems and enjoyed an hour

 

[juddles]

My over-all take on the input is that the faults lie with QF management, as they decide what they want. And that IT people just do what is asked of them by management, even if it will deliver a horrendous end-user experience.

 

[RooFlyer]

My over-all take on the input is that the faults lie with QF management, as they decide what they want. And that IT people just do what is asked of them by management, even if it will deliver a horrendous end-user experience.

Couldn't have put it better myself

As I've noted before, not an IT issue but a management issue. Pure and simple.

The buck stops with Joyce, but he's got more important things and issues to pursue.