Customer always tells the business consultant, "I need a very straight forward and simple application". Business consultant is very happy and bring project leader "listens" to what customer wants.
Project leader is very happy to "tell" software analyst on what they "listened". Software analyst always designs the application base on what he "understands" to the project leader "said".
Each developer will take his "piece" of system design from software analyst and start coding.
Upon completion, developers will pass their "piece" of accomplishment to quality assurance to test. Quality assurances are so happy to test with what they can "see" from the screen.
Upon testing completed, business consultant will "tell" the customer what a "fantastic application" has been designed and built.
Customer receives a very "fantastic bill" upon the application installed.
In fact, customer really wants a simple and straight forward application. Story not yet end, poor documentation results customer in a dilemma of redo the system or poor technical support until application phases out.
No matter you build your application internally, or outsource to a service provider or purchase from a domain expert, it is never suprise problem above happens. You will only get lesser impact after you implement Application Lifecycle Management.
Why software house always build something different from what customer want?
