We have two new people running our division. Naturally, the new people are digging into everything to figure out what they can change. Yesterday, they sent out a note to one of the work groups saying "Why don't we reinvent [a wheel]?"
Because everyone is trying to make a good impression with the new bosses, this resulted into a huge drop everything and run around like a chicken exercise in the department. Which is bad enough on it's own, but this particular "wheel" is the domain of my boss and I, and we've been asked pretty much every six months or so to try and reinvent it. Not only have we already provided a stack of proposals over the past few years, but we've also discovered that the reason none of our proposals move forward is that our clients actually don't want the "wheel" changed. They have very particular specs that are at cross-purposes to what we'd like, so every time we try to suggest something, we get shot down and have to do what they want.
Today, I'm stuck sitting here, waiting to speak with a VP about how the last-minute rush job yesterday isn't quite cutting it with the new bosses, because it's not revolutionary enough for them. Either my boss or I has to stick our neck out and point out (in a non-critical, completely supportive manner of course!) that our clients don't *want* us to reinvent the wheel, and that perhaps it would be better not to put too much energy towards this unless we have some clear cut client buy-in.
I don't see this going well for me!