Recently, it was brought up that we were duplicating the documentation on our project. The BA writes up a User Interface Specification to explain how a screen works. Then the QA would take the UI Spec and write test scripts to test the functionality on the screen. However, when they got done, the test scripts contained no additional information from the UI Spec. Then, all the test scripts had to be listed in a third sheet to show testing progress - Pass, Fail, Untested, etc. All this was done in MS Word.
So, we spent weeks conducting meetings to decide how best to reduce this duplication of work. I came up with a solution that utilized MS Excel to house the UI Spec, with columns that could also be used for testing, and code that tracked and recorded the testing progress. The solution seemed to meet all our requirements. There was less effort needed for duplicating work and less documents for housing all the crap we needed.
One day out of the blue, I was informed by the Lead BA that the project team would no longer be using my sheet. When I asked him why not, he informed me that nobody on the team knew how to make a bullet in Excel, so they were scrapping the whole idea and going back to the old way. I told him that I could help them figure out a solution, but he told me that it wasn't worth my time, because they'd already started converting everything back to MS Word.
A bullet? Seriously? How lame is that? I did figure out how to do a bullet in Excel using an ASCI code, but it made no difference, as the Lead BA stated. So, a quick easy solution was passed over in order to go back to what was familiar. All progress toward a better system thwarted by a bullet.
