Where it all began...

Dodoni computing is a software firm owned by Erich Dodoni, citizen of Dembelia, one of the biggest and most developed Western European countries. Dodoni computing consists of main headquarters in Dembelia and subsidiary office in Zagreb, Croatia. Main headquarters, located in big city in the south of Dembelia, is actually just two rooms filled by two tables, pile of junk and occasionally Mr. Dodoni playing general manager and Mrs. Dodoni playing his secretary. The actual development of the software that Dodoni tries to sell to Dembelian customers is done exclusively in Zagreb office, which has seven employees and where the most of this Legend takes place.

Two years ago, when the Legend begins, Dodoni computing was producing mainly client-server applications and most of them were designed so that main logic was placed on client side. This type of architecture is also known as "fat client". Ninety percent of those applications were written in Visual Basic. Only recently they started to develop web applications, but it was way too late and dictated by market needs, not by their wish to learn new technologies and adapt to new trends.
Compared to that lack of vision and going behind the trends, it is hard to believe that Dodoni attracted so many prominent clients. When you read the list of firms that bought Dodoni's products, you think you are looking at Dembelia's Fortune 500 companies. Big multinational companies, banks, insurances, even software firms with 10 times more employees and budget than Dodoni, decided to give their money for something they believed was software that would help them solve their business problems. To preserve their good name and reputation, we won't tell you their real names but in your every day's life you are surely using more than one product manufactured by these companies.

It is still a mystery how Mr. Dodoni and his small firm managed to get all those big accounts, especially knowing the fact that competition in Dembelia is hard and many big software companies are fighting for their position on the market. There were rumors that, prior to starting his own firm, Mr. Dodoni was a salesman in big Dembelian software firm, and that position allowed him to get many contacts and friends on high positions in Dembelian companies. It was also believed that he was using those contacts to get into those companies and sell them his software. Other theory was that he offered much lower prices than competition, since he was using cheap labour in Zagreb. Later that theory was proven false when employees found out how much profit Dodoni was getting from their work. There were also other theories, but no employee was lucky enough to find out the truth The answer lies somewhere in Dembelia, so maybe somebody who knows it and reads this site can help us solve this big puzzle. :)

Quality and employees are NOT our primary concern

Although founded in a country whose name is synonym for organization and quality, Dodoni computing is a firm that violates all common rules of developing professional software and treating employees with respect. In one of the books about the management I've read the definition of a good company: "A good company is one who has good management and satisfied employees". Let's compare that definition to situation in Dodoni computing: Dodoni managers (Mr. Dodoni and chief of Zagreb office) are people who have never been in software development and who have no idea what is the difference between that process and for instance, making kebabs on the train station. Regarding satisfied employees, we can only say that Dodoni computing is a perfect example of good resource pool where other Croatian firms can easily find new employees. 

Every person who wished to learn, improve and do the job professionally soon found out that Dodoni computing was definitely not a place to stay without the risk for physical and mental health. There were many examples of stupidity, ignorance and bad treatment of employees in Dodoni, the most important being:

• Projects are run chaotically and on ad-hoc basis. Planning and management are done just pro forma, and monitoring the progress doesn't exist.
• There is no defined business or software development process.
• There is no quality assurance procedure and no testing plans.
• There are no standards and code conventions.
• Nobody writes the technical documentation, except when client explicitly demands it.
• The main occupation of chief of Zagreb office is hiding his incompetence.
• Employees are allowed to speak only if they suck up to management. If somebody tries to point out the weak practices or poorly run projects, he is shut up or humiliated.
• Management doesn't care about the employee's education. It escalated to such level that employees are not allowed to attend even free seminars.
• Sick days mean 20% salary cut, even if person stays home for two days. Most normal Croatian companies tolerate up to one month of sick days without salary cut, because they know that, once in good shape, employee will work overtime to compensate for being sick.
• Extra working hours are not paid, even when it is obvious that it is a management's fault e.g. bad resource planning.
• There are no bonuses. No Christmas bonus, no vacation bonus. Nothing. Period.
• The hardware is old and slow.
• Zagreb office is located in old building. Rooms desperately cry for redecoration, everything is filthy and stinky but nobody cares.
• Although summer temperatures in Zagreb rise up to 35 degrees Celsius, with even higher temperatures inside the room full of computers, Mr. Dodoni didn't care to install air-conditioner. Obviously it was too expensive for him. Let employees sweat like pigs, he is far away and doesn't have to smell that wonderful odour.

It wouldn't be fair to say that everybody wanted to leave Dodoni. There were people who were well aware that, regarding their knowledge and intelligence, being in Dodoni is as good as it gets and they would be fools to quit and put themselves on tight labour market. Unfortunately, at least half of the employees in Zagreb could be placed in that group and their definite leader was chief of Zagreb office himself, Zarko Balijic. He was also the most responsible for the fact that Dodoni ship was inevitably sinking, despite all the efforts of Mr. Dodoni and his constant investments in Zagreb office.

Team of champions

Every legend has its heroes, that's why we start the Legend about the Dodoni computing with stories about each one of the characters involved. The team of champions when the Legend began was formed of the following people: