Mission State Meant

Marketing wanted "Strategy,"
A clear and concrete vision.
So the team went on an offsite
To create themselves a Mission

Statement, brilliant in it prose,
Clear, Concise and quite exquisite.
The offsite team performed its task
And came up with the requisite

Statement of their purpose
Boiled to its very essence
Crafted from experience and
All the myriad lessons

Learned from years of hard-fought toil
Fighting battles of release,
Silly dates, and sillier features,
Work that would not cease

Until the product finally shipped
Into the sweaty client's hands
Down the street, across the seas,
To those in distant lands

Who promptly ran the install program
And tried the product out
And quickly overran its limits
And began to shout

About the features not yet working
And the bugs that weren't yet fixed
Ensuring that the team's brief hopes
Of success were quickly nixed .

And so they all went back into their
Cubes, stained black from use
And eyed the next release
As though it were a bloody noose.

In memory of these former times,
Of utter, sad defeat,
The team did write their Mission Statement,
"Code. Ship. Repeat."