[EsotericAlgo]

One story that comes to mind is the difficulty of change management. It’s possible to configure Aloha locally but beyond a certain number of locations a configuration tool called Configuration Center is used. It basically stores configuration information on a server (as a tree with the rough idea of inheritance) that stores connect to and pull down into the various configuration formats used.

In the tool there isn’t a concept of approvals. We had an admin disable receipt printers at all stores. There wasn’t a reliable global refresh so we had 10 people logging in remotely (through another horrible tool that was a front end for a reverse VNC connection) and calling stores to reset their configuration which brought their system down for 2 to 10 minutes during a Friday lunch rush.

We fixed this with process but NCR made it easy to shoot oneself in the foot.