Make It Look Like The Picture

So what's the problem, you ask? Seems like a simple assignment. First problem was that it wasn't clear how the existing system worked -- lots of calls to other programs and confusing logic. So we said "Hey, got any documentation on what this thing does?" The answer was "Heck no. How simple can it be? Just go talk to the guys who are working on it, they will tell you."
We went and talked to those guys. All of them said "Hey. Whatever you do, don't make it like the current system. Boy that is a piece of junk. Trust me, I work on it everyday. It's so broken it won't keep running for very long"
So we asked to speak to the users. Surely they would know WTF, right? "Users are in a different town. Don't be bothering them with a bunch of questions" came the reply.
So we had a project, a project schedule, a project manager. We even had nice weekly meetings where we gave our status reports and such. We even had confabs with the VP in charge of software development, down in his nice cushy office with the window view. It was a lot of fun.
The only thing we didn't have was a clue on what we were doing!
What was the real problem here? The real problem was that nobody in management was taking responsibility for the performance of the system -- what it was supposed to do. How it was supposed to all fit together. Everybody wanted to talk at a 40-thousand-feet level. Well heck, from 40-thousand feet everything seems kind of simple, doesn't it? Even a charging rhinoceros doesn't look so big when it is far away -- but it gets a lot bigger when it's getting ready to run over you.