97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Chapter 15. Document Your Process, Then Make Sure It Is Followed

MCSE. Monte Davis

DURING AN EMAIL MIGRATION FROM ONE PLATFORM TO ANOTHER, a woman got married and brought our email system to its knees.

The email flow works like this:

1. New emails coming in are delivered through the new email system.

2. If the new email system can, it delivers the message to the appropriate new system user. If not, the message is sent on to the old email system for delivery.

3. Emails sent from someone still on the old system to someone still on the old system are delivered to the appropriate mailbox. However, if the recipient has already been migrated to the new system, the email is automatically forwarded using a "migration" forwarding address created for each user.

Here's where the funny part comes in. Once Sally Single was migrated to the new email system, she had two email addresses, [e-mail], as well as a forwarding email address, [e-mail]. All email sent to her from users on the old system would automatically be forwarded to the new mail system using her "migration" forwarding address.

When Sally got married and changed her name from "Sally Single" to "Sally Married," her email address changed as well. However, the person who renamed Sally's email address in the new system forgot to change her email "migration" forwarding address on the old system. So, Sally ended ...