PITYS - Planned I Told You So's

I heard a great new term last week: PITYS - Planned I Told You So's

PITYS, attributed to Mark Russinovich, Chief Architect of Windows, is what happens when the concerns of engineers are glossed over by management or marketing or whomever and the clearly-flawed plan is put into play without any further consideration.

I can't tell ya how many times I've been in these situations in various big company environments. You try your best to shed light on the risks posed by a given plan, only to be assailed by fervent rationalization or told that engineers just don't understand the "big picture".

At this point, the experienced engineer knows that he has no option but to quietly resign himself to that the fact that the plan will proceed despite his concerns, and at some almost certain point in the future, he will be dragged into the resulting crisis and will be in the all too familiar position of saying "I told you this was a problem n weeks/months ago."

It reminds me of a scene from Austin Powers:

Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers

Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?

Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]

Dr. Evil: Close the tank!

Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!

Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?

Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!

Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.