[wpietri]

> one report that a client says is mission critical, but is never used.

My dad started developing software in the late 60s. As a kid (let's say circa 1982, definitely in the minicomputer era), I remember him talking about a problem at work: to do all their daily processing, they needed about 28 hours. A lot of the workload was reporting, so he asked managers what reports were no longer useful. Naturally, he was assured that every report was absolutely vital to proper functioning.

His solution was just to start dropping reports. If anybody complained, he'd put them back in the job list. A significant number of reports went unlamented, and soon the computer was able to complete its daily workload handily.

The lesson I took from this is that expressed desire is often very different than actual need, so separating the two can pay big dividends. I've never used that trick, but the lesson runs all through my methods.

[tricolon]

That's an excellent example of loss aversion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

[lazaroclapp]

Well, the only issue I can see with that now a days is if one such report is actually needed only for compliance purposes. Then, five years down the line, an audit happens and 1825 copies of that required daily report happen to be missing...

[dexterdog]

Well at least they didn't worry about the report on leap days.

[jimktrains2]

Then someone should be verifying that they're being created. Same idea with backups whereas you're suppose to check and verify them, even if you're not "using" them.

[skylan_q]

We do the same thing with physical servers and network ports. If no one knows what it does, unplug it and see what breaks or who complains. :)