Inevitably, with software there will be bugs/defects/issues. These can appear randomly and only once customers start to raise issues do suppliers realise there is a problem. Most suppliers wouldn’t release software with a ‘known issues list’ – why would you release software knowing there were problems – but it can happen. Make sure you read those upgrade documents!
Clearly, bugs are an unintended consequence of a change made to the applications. Suppliers don’t set out to cause problems but some do use the “release it now, fix it later” approach.
In the same way, many people take medication. The medication is meant to help fix a problem but there can be side effects. We accept this, take the medication and if it doesn’t work, we stop.
When running HR processes or payrolls, we often have to weigh up the risks. For example, a release may fix an ongoing issue with our payslip but introducing that upgrade into the environment means that we accept the side effect which makes the system slower at running the payslip report.
An approach we often recommend at Phase 3 is to wait for the first Service Pack before upgrading. Selfishly, that means ‘let others have the pain and we reap the reward’ but it does mean the supplier has the chance to resolve issues or at least update documentation to make the users aware that an issue exists and how to work around it.
Take away one point from this: Your supplier doesn’t intend to cause issues but we do expect that they should work hard to resolve them.