Getting it right the first time is not Rocket Science especially when you have all the information required not to fail – yet it happens and today it happened again – it is a classic!
Today was the long awaited day for signing up for the biggest Triathlon event Globally – ITU World Triathlon in Hamburg. There was a special price tag for the first 2000 signing up and another for the next 2001 – 6000 and finally one for the ones that did not make is before the 6000. In total 10.000 participates is expected to sign up for this event, that has been running for the past 15 years.
The release of the tickets has been hyped for months, people are excited and they are in front of the computer ready to go – just like black Friday…
Signing up for an event like this today is a 100% digital, there are no manual processes it is all down to the system and the servers that it is being build and hosted upon.
The brief is pretty easy; expect to have at least 10.000 concurrent users wanting to access the sign-up process – 12PM on Tuesday, December the 15th 2015.
There has been ample time to plan and test, that the brief outlined above is in fact possible with the set-up that they have decided to run. It is a very simple test that can be run fully automated. Never the less it seems that someone somewhere did not do this – 5 minutes into the process the whole system went down…currently there is no timeframe for when it will be up and running again.
Now both Facebook and Twitter is boiling with frustrated users who where unable to sign-up. They where in the stalls ready run for the first 2000 tickets at a bargain price. From the Facebook and Twitter frustrations it is evident that it is not the first time that this has happened, it is starting to tarnish the event brand…
The outlook for when the site will be up and running so that people can sign up is at this point unknown, the situation can be compared to the situation that occurred in 2012 where Victoria’s Secret launched a new web-shop during the NFL finals – they where unable to operate for more than a week due to not sizing the servers correctly. Had they looked at their clients and the history of the NFL’s finals they would have know what would happen.
The situation with the ITU World Triathlon in Hamburg can be directly compare to the above story. They too have all the experience and the numbers as well as the data required for a successful launch – folding is not an options and is typically a symptom of improper planning, testing the wrong set-up with insufficient bandwidth and missing leadership and finally failed (potentially missing) Quality Strategy.
Reverse the situation, start planning; use the information and data that you have. Provide sufficient funding and leadership to ensure that your core business is not being jeopardised. It is all in the planning and having prober quality people with the right competences doing it.
As an multi million dollar world wide organisation you are your own worst enemy when it comes to not giving enough attention to quality – it is not possible to wing-it.
Invest in quality, it will ensure that you continue to grow the value of your business and brand. If you continue to do what you did yesterday you will continue to get the same results. If you want different results then you need to do things different going forward.
Heidi Kristoffersen 