Application Service Engineering, In A Nutshell

You *are* an expert, aren’t you?

Imagine you are on the deck of an eighteenth century sailing ship. There are a number of large cannon on the deck with you. Each cannon is only secured with a single rope, each one tied to a different part of its cannon and location on the ship. Every few moments, the captain randomly commands his men to change where some of the ropes are tied off on the ship or to their cannon, then turns broadside into heavy seas, causing the deck to rock violently. Less regularly, the captain abruptly drops anchor or turns hard over, opens sails full, and runs downwind at breakneck pace.

You’ve just been given the job to build and permanently install gun-crew workstations and targeting devices around each of these cannon which will be available and effective 99.95% of the time. Also, the deadline was two weeks ago, and no one on the crew understands any of the technologies or tools you have to use.

Somehow, the current state of the project is your fault…