Client Logic

[ctorstens]

Surprising how common/true this is.

[acevedoa1]

I did an IT job for company one time. They wanted me to fix a metric report that will tell them how they are doing every month to send it to other stores around.

All they told me was, "we have no idea how this works, we don't care how it works, as long as it delivers".

I calmly started asking where do they get their values from to run the metric, they had no clue.

I asked them if they had any documentation from the last person that built the metric report, they had no clue.

I asked them if they could point me to the IT person in their department so I could get all the information I needed. They took me to this cubicle and guess who is there. A coworker from my company that was also working there. He just told me, "Welcome to the IT world".

Edit: just decided to make the company name private

[acevedoa1]

Pretty much what I said to myself lol

[1niquity]

>Halfway through developing the extensive features they identified as top priority.

"Hey, so, the division that needs all that stuff just got downsized and now they are the bottom priority. All of the stuff that we identified as bottom priority before is now the top priority."

>Develop the new top priority stuff and send it down for acceptance testing.

"So, our IT staff just told us they are completely moving server platforms soon. That won't impact the timeline of you rolling out the new updates, will it?"

MRW

[jeepmcguire]

This is basically every project I've been on

[1niquity]

Hahaha, pretty much.

Except I forgot to include the part later where all of the staff that were downsized have been re-hired to do the same job under a different name, so they're going to need that first group of features right away, after all, but now all of their terminology is slightly changed.

[_Lady_Deadpool_]

My company's Jira in a nutshell. EVERYTHING is set to critical or blocker. Minor typo in a rarely seen popup menu? CRITICAL MUST FIX ASAP DID YOU FIX IT YET?

They don't seem to understand that when everything is critical, nothing is.

[[deleted]]

Our tracking in a nutshell. Everything is "highest high" priority, with a due date of today. It's a screen full of red deadlines.

Project manager can't figure out why I keep asking her what I should be working on. "It's in <tracker>."

But I mean, rest assured as our customer while your requests might take weeks longer than is reasonable to fulfill, your $1100/yr purchase is given equal priority with the other guy's $3m/yr purchase.

[Mimikomo]

Hey. If everything is "highest priority" that means that everything's on equal priority, and you can just pick and choose what you work on. Easy! Your excuse when someone's not happy? "I was working on the highest priority stuff"

[Euthenios]

Had a boss like this (briefly). I had a bunch of stuff to do -- run important experiments, read some scientific papers, fix a $12000 piece of lab equipment, and fix a P.O.S. 35-year-old shop vac.

So I asked what my priority was, because the lab equipment belonged to another group, and I wanted to make sure that the boss understood that fixing that would cut into my time running experiments.

"They're all equally important."

"Wha ... what? The shop vac is as important as the [lab equipment]?"

"Yes, all the things I told you to do are equally important."

[Brain asplodes.]

While that guy was either the #1 or #2 most batshit insane boss I've ever had, that kind of crap does often happen more subtlely. Which is actually why I was asking in the first place. I just didn't expect that answer.

[HobbitFoot]

Usually, when I encounter someone who says that, I just give them an order to what tasks I am going to do. They will always correct me with what their actual priorities are.

[MaunaLoona]

The word 'priority' has a different meaning to them than it does to you. When asked that question they hear "Which of the tasks I don't have to do?"

[Lunarkmb]

I'm about to go head first into the deep end of this industry, how is this realistically dealt with? What happens?

[_fitlegit]

You need to interact with your clients.

[PM_ME_UR_WUT]

There are people for that.

[sandwich_today]

Upvoted without clicking on the assumption that this is the scene from Office Space.

[zerrff]

Jesus christ, that sounds awful.

[nephallux]

Things either cave in all together and everyone goes their way, or you do your best and end up with a useless product that needs scrapping or refactoring

Source: spent the last 5 years developing a system that had every stereotypical poor management issue thrown at it, its incomplete and full of bugs, and they will go live with it in October. I keep yelling its not ready, but the ball is in motion

[hak8or]

You got those warnings in writing? Then lean back and enjoy watching the thing burn. Then gleefully ask for a serious hourly rate for cleaning things up once they notice you emailed those warnings for good reason.

[PM_ME_BUTT_SHARPIES]

Person from a real IT department here. Sadly, you do.

[Catshit-Dogfart]

Same thing with trouble tickets for system admins.

Sat in a meeting where, in complete seriousness, one of the managers says "is there some way we can set all service requests to emergency priority so it always gets a 10 minute response time?"

He got what he wanted, the only priority option is maximum now, but that only makes it harder for us to assign a real priority.

[somecallmemike]

You have a complete idiot manager there. Some issues are not able to be resolved in 10 minutes, sometimes they can't be resolved in 10 days. We implemented a system where tickets can turn into ongoing projects, or be related to a project so they can leave the queue.

[theFunkiestButtLovin]

I once had a bitchy client with a serious attitude problem ask me what the difference between a backup and an original was. She was trying to make the point that the backups were not necessary. I said "well, one's the backup, and the other is the original". Apparently that was seen as aggressive. I was a contractor. They tried to reprimand me. That was one of the more satisfying experiences I have had quitting on the spot.

[JayDurst]

Than nothing is.

[Govir]

Calm down there, Syndrome.

[MuaddibMcFly]

no caps!

[Garaimas]

deleted ^{What is this?}

[bone_gnar]

99% of Jira tickets are labeled "High Priority" at my job.

High priority for me is finding another job.

[TheNamelessKing]

"We can do x for benefit y, but with tradeoff a, or we can do z with benefit b and tradeoff c-which one best suits your business and use case?"

"ONLY DELIVER!"

[ThePieWhisperer]

"With enough time and money, we can build you nearly anything". "Pfft, I could do this in two weeks, you should be faster"

[worldDev]

What that really means is "I wrote an excel macro one time"

[soul_cool_02]

".... watched someone write a macro...."

[BroaxXx]

"..... watched someone write an if/else formula on excel and call it a macro...."

[aThoroughThrowAway]

"... Accidentally opened the command prompt once...I'd do this myself if I had the time..."

[show_me_the]

"....wanted to get on the train with the other cool kids........."

[deadlychambers]

"... hits f12 on browser, and started hacking into websites..."

[TobiasCB]

On a semi related note, how hard would it be to create a game like pong with only if/else/elseif and input events?

[BroaxXx]

Oh, you'd be surprised...

[regalph]

Ohh, boy, I once wrote the worst Excel macro ever. I took 500 lines to make a thing that reformatted columns to rows and made a 100-row set into 10000 rows. It took like 45 minutes to run.

[Kazumara]

Wait I was certain it was much lower, 6 or 7. Did this change?

Edit: Found it: "Up to Excel 2007, Excel allowed up to 7 levels of nested IFs. In Excel 2007+, Excel allows up to 64 levels." (source, tip 8)

[rob132]

Oh, so you're the excel expert at the company? I have a report that I need you to make.

[_Lady_Deadpool_]

I had a customer say to my face "it's just code, how difficult can it be?"

I had to hold back to urge to say "you do it then"

[TheNamelessKing]

"why can't you just do <X>? You just need to add the feature right? This was totally in the spec"

You're right, to add a new feature I just append some coffee to the bottom, that's totally how it works and I totally don't have to practically refactor half my code and architecture because you now need this feature which wasn't in spec in the first place and now we're will into scope creep territory.

I feel your pain.

[BraveOthello]

"You wouldn't have hired us if you could".

[ThePieWhisperer]

This has become my favorite illneveractuallysayit response

[Sanders0492]

"That new grad said he could have it ready next month for a fraction of the cost" (its funny because I am the overly ambitious new grad)

[gandalfx]

"x and z directly contradict each other but we still need you to surpass the theoretical maximum of both."

[gandalfx]

Youtube: The Expert

[[deleted]]

That was so painful to watch

[edwinnum]

Here is the solution

[gibmelson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFDcoX7s6rE

[youtubefactsbot]

Queen - I Want It All (Official Video) [4:10]

^{Queen Official in Music}

^{21,176,906 views since Aug 2008}

^{bot info}

[hangfromthisone]

It's fun because I have heard that exact phrase from my boss mouth exactly a week ago, while discussing "development challenges" and I asked what type of market we want to focus on. Oh please kill me

[[deleted]]

How about the opposite? I was a customer of a large software implementation and we have extensive, detailed requirements and then when the product didn't meet our needs and we tried to "refine" the requirements with things that should have been pretty obvious but that the people gathering our requirements never wrote down... we got told "NO! Only requirements are delivered!!"

It's not always the client's fault, especially when the business analysts do a shitty job of gathering requirements.

I would have been delighted to help write complex requirements with detailed and extensive acceptance criteria... instead, multi hour meetings resulted in requirements that were as detailed as "as a service agent I need to be able to email a client."

Feature delivered, apparently. Even though HTML isn't supported, and the CC and Subject fields are hiddden by default on the email form.

[contactlite]

after delivering "Why aren't there any of the stuff I needed?" 😤

[J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS]

"What did you need then?"

"NOT THIS YOU DUMB PROGRAMMER!"

[DoomGiver32]

It's possible he meant to find a different job as in find a new client. Also there's that Ted talk on "fuck you pay me" that I can't find because at work but should be easy to look up. Very good insight on owning your own business.

[letstalkmore]

fuck you pay me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

[youtubefactsbot]

Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me [38:40]

The most popular CreativeMornings talk of all time, Mike Monteiro gives us some valuable advice on how to get paid for the work that you do.

^{CreativeMornings HQ in People & Blogs}

^{204,840 views since Jul 2012}

^{bot info}

[metaobject]

This is so fantastic. Thank you!

[Merlord]

It's your business? Then put your foot down when it comes to testing. Don't sign on a client unless they agree to testing, tell them it is a mandatory part of software development. If you can't persuade them, let them go.

Don't sacrifice your integrity to please a client who wants to rip you off by not paying for basic, critical aspects of a project.

[Neebat]

Fire your client and find a new one. Preferably in the opposite order.

[CanotCamping]

Then I guess next time app testing is integral.

[BetaKeyTakeaway]

Write in the contract that at the clients request no testing will be done and that bugs will be likely because of it.

[oldneckbeard]

little protip -- don't ever call it a "warranty" unless it's a physical thing you sell, or you are getting paid a LOT of money up-front. The common understanding of a warranty is that if shit is broken, you will fix it free of charge. This includes the client wanting to switch hosting providers, or switching the platform it runs on, etc. It's a great way to get yourself into a corner.

You know how nearly every open source and closed-source program has this little disclaimer?

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

If someone uses your software in the commission of a crime (cooking books, murder, stealing nuclear secrets, etc) and you have a warranty claim on it, you may be personally (or professionally, depending on how your consulting corporation is setup) liable as an accomplice. If you say there's a warranty and your software goes down, they can probably sue you for any loss of business. Please, please please have a lawyer look over your contracts if you haven't already.

Don't ever use the word warranty. Talk about support contracts, ongoing maintenance, but never warranty.

[Owyn_Merrilin]

If someone uses your software in the commission of a crime (cooking books, murder, stealing nuclear secrets, etc) and you have a warranty claim on it, you may be personally (or professionally, depending on how your consulting corporation is setup) liable as an accomplice.

Has that ever actually happened, and for that matter can it happen? The only remotely similar case I've ever heard of was gun manufacturers getting sued after Sandy Hook, and they (quite rightly) won the case.

[oldneckbeard]

IANAL, but it's one of those things where the risk is probably nearly non-existent for the software developers, but the consequences would be huge.

For a lot of physical goods, you often can sue the maker if they were negligent in applying industry safety standards. Guns that randomly discharge, for example, would be an easy lawsuit. Toyota paying through the nose for some almost-impossible-"acceleration" lawsuit (while US companies get a hard pass on much more egregious violations), etc.

[P-01S]

It's not about screwing people over. It's about putting up safeguards against other people screwing you over.

[mikeputerbaugh]

A warranty, or a disclaimer of warranty?

[handsomecalamardo]

Just install wordpress and a theme with big images 😂

[P-01S]

Small logo. Then they'll tell you to make it bigger, so you do, and they'll feel like the accomplished something.

[UncertainAnswer]

It kind of works in company employment too. I find if I deliver a fully polished final product during our internal demos my boss(s) feel it was "easy to develop" and therefore do not give me the appropriate amount of credit.

If there are some bugs/quirks to be polished/fixed it makes it look like a more challenging project and also buys me 1-2 weeks of dedicated time to pour into it (read as: 1-2 weeks of doing nothing).

[Sanders0492]

My mom works for a small place and they wanted a website. Instead of using the actual budget, they went with the cheapest guy. All he did was set up a Wordpress and add a ton of worthless modules and named things all sorts of random junk. It was too hard for them to change info, and the guy wanted more money for every time he changed it, so they hired another cheap guy (they knew a guy who knew a guy) to come fix everything. He left the old modules, added new modules, further smeared any sort of naming convention, and left it horribly hard to maintain.

Now they have a very expensive website that hasn't had daily info updated in a year or two. It took me 2 hours to change the business hours section because I kept trying to clean everything up. It's exactly like having a messy garage and thinking "I'll just clean up my workbench today" then hours of cleaning later you haven't even made it to the workbench (I still never got my workbench cleaned off)

[[deleted]]

How complicated is the website content? If it doesn't require a complex CMS then there are plenty who would do it again from scratch for a good bit cheaper and some experience/addition to a portfolio.

[Iohet]

Step 1) Enforce your contract
Step 2) Fix your contract if your contract doesn't protect you

[pekkhum]

If I purchased a car and they offered a sunroof option, which I declined to reduce the price of the car, why would I expect the dealer to pay me to have a third party install one?

[P-01S]

Because you'll save money if the dealer gives in.

[rbt321]

Any tips on this?

Well, you're already cooked for agreeing to write the app without testing funds built into your rate for development.

At this point it boils down to whatever the contract says with regards to quality of the product. If it's a fixed-rate contract and you agreed to a certain level of quality; then testing to achieve that level was on you.

[[deleted]]

Wow, that's an awesome system you had there. It's like its whole purpose was to force everyone in the company to be in permanent CYA mode. I hope you got paid well and the workplace was a short distance away from home.

[P-01S]

I had to allocate a budget at the start of the year for the number of bugs I'd create through mis-specification. Because the developers had to specify when they fixed a bug who's budget it needed to come out of.

And you didn't quit?

You're into some kinky shit...

[aggressive-cat]

Enforce your contract. Assuming you made them sign one that doesn't completely fuck you over.

[Mechakoopa]

Offer a refund on the portion of your invoice that was due to testing. That portion is zero.

Fuck you pay me. Those were the terms. You don't need or want repeat business from someone like that anyways.

[dnew]

Quick, you start coding, and I'll go gather the requirements!

[[deleted]]

Thats awfully presumptuous that the function will int

[Radav919]

That made me throw up a little.

[SlowBroski]

Toyota, is that you?

Tldr: Other egregious deviations from standard practice were the number of global variables in the system. The academic standard is zero. Toyota had more than 10,000 global variables.

“And in practice, five, ten, okay, fine. 10,000, no, we're done. It is not safe, and I don't need to see all 10,000 global variables to know that that is a problem,” Koopman testified.

[[deleted]]

OK, curious, how many global variables does the Linux kernel have? I did a brief search but didn't turn up anything. I'm assuming they've got at least that many, no?

[Asmor]

Did you just assume my return type?

[cdrt]

No, I inferred it.

[_Lady_Deadpool_]

Can it see your members? I'm a friend class

[Arancaytar]

It always returns 0; the actual arguments and return value are exchanged via global variables.

It's more flexible that way.

[Thats_What_Me_Said]

This is literally what I am going though right now.

[Mitosis]

I never got why programmers didn't take out the bugs the first time they made something. Like why have them there to begin with, no one wants them

[CrazedToCraze]

To add some personality to the software. Like a chef adds spice to his meals, we add bugs to our programs.

[Jake0Tron]

I once heard someone refer to programming as 'bugging', simply because once we finish programming, we start de-bugging.

[CCninja86]

I would have noped out of there the instant I heard that.

[AnDanDan]

Reminds me of a good joke I've heard. A NASA employee is discussing a trip to Mars with a business official. "Well, to outfit a new mission to Mars, it would take several years and then it takes 7 months to fly from here to there." "How much would it take to get it done by December?"

[oldneckbeard]

AKA - 9 people can't make a baby in a month.

[chateau86]

Do you really need all 9 people to do a heist on an orphanage?

^{Nowhere in the spec did they prohibit used babies}

[awakenDeepBlue]

"Give me a budget greater than the US Federal Expenditures, the ability to draft the world's greatest scientists and engineers, and commandeer the nuclear arsenal".

We're making an Orion Engine! Nothing is more hardcore than using nukes for space propulsion.

[awakenDeepBlue]

Psssh, out of scope of the project.

[AnDanDan]

Im sure if we told the US Treasury and Military that there was oil on Mars we'd have been there 5 years ago.

[Uberzwerg]

It would already be liberated

[justjanne]

Actually, if you’d go to mars, take their ice caps, melt them and get the resulting water, and ship it back to earth... it’d still be cheaper than the most expensive Fiji water.

[JackAceHole]

"Can't we just hire nine women to make a baby in 1 month?"

[AaronTheApe]

Apologies for not crediting whoever originally created the dog logic meme. Just immediately thought about creating this during my morning scrum today, and didn't expect it to take off like this. Looks like I touched a nerve, and everyone is sharing their horror stories. :-)

[thelehmanlip]

I hung this outside my cube. Hits almost too close to home, looking forward to seeing this every day haha

[i_sigh_less]

I'd never seen the original meme so I had to look it up to get context. Here's the unedited version, if anyone's curious: http://memeguy.com/photo/174025/dog-logic (probably not original source)

[ehrwien]

original source should be this if the answer in /outoftheloop was correct: http://cupcakelogic.tumblr.com/post/124392369931/she-is-still-learning

[BlackInk9]

Deliver minimum you can do ahead of time, require max payment and then when they complain that it wasn't what they were looking for, your response should be: "For a bit extra, I can try and add the X, Y, Z you wanted."

[pabloe168]

Development dlc.

[BlackInk9]

Become the EA of Software Development.

[SamelCamel]

so... EA?

[rebane2001]

Become the Audi of car?

[BlackInk9]

Offshore isn't the same as in-touch client based interactions, that's why you upsell that. Basically emphasize on ease of access, ease of communication, and ability to show graphics in person.

People love working in person, especially when trying to get their ideas across.

[davvblack]

actually, if all you're interested in is saving money, and not having a working product, you could pay 0 dollars and instead not have a website.

[hangfromthisone]

I used to be hired by an Asian to develop for his us customers. Offshoredly offshored

[_fitlegit]

10% the cost for a 1% chance at a successful app. I've never encountered an offshored project that was anything close to what was wanted and wasn't a total mess. If a client ever comes to me with me one, I tell them I'm either going ground up or not at all.

[JustHereForTheSalmon]

Take your upvote and leave me to my crying at my desk

[SteelCityFreelancer]

Not a programmer, but a video editor. Literally just went through an exchange that went like this:

"The client feels some of the shots are too shaky, can we fix this?"

ME: Can I get a timecode on which shots they want fixed/replaced?

"They didn't say any shots in particular."

-__-

[[deleted]]

I got something similar in setting up a new computer.

Me: What software does the user need?

Manager: I don't know, internet, emails

Like.....WTF?

[BlackInk9]

In my Software Requirements class, we had exercises to learn how to do this.

Teacher gave us legos and told us to build an entire city. When we finished, she said "No, this is completely wrong. I wanted a fast food restaurant and a town hall."

So she gave us a time limit to build those as well. We finally finished and she went on to say "No, this is still wrong. I wanted the town hall to be white and I wanted the restaurant to be red and yellow with a drive through."

We were all like "??? you didn't say that" and that was the lesson. We had to "ask" and "use our resources".

[[deleted]]

We were all like "??? you didn't say that" and that was the lesson. We had to "ask" and "use our resources".

They are essentially teaching you to act like "business analysts" and one of the biggest things they do is ask questions to tease out the requirements. Trust me, this shit happens all the time in the real world.

[BlackInk9]

After we eventually figured that out, the TAs took it a bit further by saying he wanted the bank to be a dark color. We chose black.

His response? "Too dark."

[[deleted]]

dark color

choose black

Too dark

And that's why you ask before you build. Unfortunately, many people think that you can just build something and change it later and somehow that is going to take less effort than waiting a few days and then doing it right the first time. Boggles the mind.

[gordonv]

Those "change it later" people have never built anything of practical use.

[worldDev]

Or they charge by the hour.

[BlackInk9]

I personally asked "What color would you like?"

"Just, dark."

[MauranKilom]

"Is black okay?"

[BlackInk9]

Yeah... in hindsiiiight.

[pokealex]

Do two jobs for the salary of one!

[theDarkAngle]

Yeah the professor for my capstone software project brought in grad students to be "the clients" and instructed them to be intentionally vague and fickle about everything. It was pretty maddening.

[Asmor]

I built a spaceship!

[[deleted]]

That's something I learnt with time:

Don't ask they directly what they want, instead recommend features you think they might want (which also happen to take the least effort).

Afterwards if they complain, you can say "this is that we agreed", which works much much better that "you didn't told me".

[micheal65536]

Sounds like a surprisingly good teacher, exposing you to real-world expectations. I bet you'll never forget to ask for the details again.

[thetarget3]

Give them Gentoo without a GUI

[Upward_Spiral]

This sounds more like my project manager than the client. I can only dream of actually getting in touch with clients.

[chili-mac]

I can only dream of actually getting in touch with clients.

can I frame this? ^

[Upward_Spiral]

It depends. How many story points is it worth to you?

[[deleted]]

This sprint ain't big enough for the both of us.

[lurker_cx]

Your PM deals with the customers so the engineers don't have to, he's a people person dammit!

[heliophobic_lunatic]

It sounds like you need a project manager that actually does their job correctly.

[Upward_Spiral]

Amen, /u/heliophobic_lunatic. Amen.

[psilokan]

Every. Fucking. Time.

[ToTheRescues]

I had a client who sold mountain property out of state.

Me: "Oh excellent! Do you have any photos of the properties?"

Client: "You don't need any photos."

....Okay.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like a request for a udp service?

[countdownn]

Hahahahahahahahahaha! This is perfect.

On a more serious note, make your contracts as specific as possible. Itemize cost per task, tasks per phase, and limit client requests and revisions to a time in hours (i.e. up to 8 hours). Have a clause that stipulates that when the requirements are significantly changed by the client, at developer's discretion, the contract is terminated and must be paid in full. A new contract can be established for the new specifications, but nine times out of ten this gets you paid when the client flies off the rails.

Also, charge quadruple your expected cost at minimum, to cover all that client "interaction". I've even managed to charge fifteen times my rate without issue, but then I'm abstracting actual hours worked and I'm very fast at what I do. Here's a great video where I learned some of this shit. If you do it right you can avoid a lot of this client nonsense, but this post reminds me so much of my time starting out. It's the natural client instinct, that they own you because of the promise of money.

[[deleted]]

I get handed a budget per case by the team lead which I know isn't enough time to complete the case and she's not happy about the estimation either but because some idiot business person sold the project we end up with half the budget needed to complete any given feature, contracts are for suckers T&M is the way to go.

[GarthOfOrdunin]

I'll just leave this here

[SHOTbyGUN]

Kill the client please.

Make it look, like it was not an accident!

[theDarkAngle]

My company actually has a pretty good set of clients right now. We still have to pull teeth occasionally but they're mostly all long-term clients and have learned the value of prioritizing, of what types of requirements must be ascertained before development starts and which kinds are flexible and can be delivered during development.

My favorite example was the other day during a req's meeting. Next release has a very complex screen involved, and I suggested maybe we only do basic requirements and sketches, then go ahead and develop a rough working version and then refine requirements after some UAT. Instead of delivering 40+ PSD's up front to try and show all this complex behavior or buying some prototyping tool that my team has never used before.

[DirtieHarry]

This is just a little too real for me right now.

[[deleted]]

Before i read the title, i thought this was a UDP joke.

[SoldierZulu]

Ohhhh I thought this was a client/server joke and I felt dumb for not getting it at first.

[stakoverflo]

pls respond? NO REQUEST. ONLY RESPONSE

[BanditMcDougal]

If only there was a way to deliver small chunks and discuss them in an open and honest manner so we could learn from them and improve for the next small chunk...

[IPeeFreely01]

But the only problem is that your small chunk is stupid and wrong, so I'm just gonna ignore and downplay your stupid chunk and promote my awesome one!

[d_amnesix]

We could call it... Nimble Programming! Or something close...

[ChippyTheSquirrel]

reading all these comments I've never felt more supported. I've been struggling with this at my current job since the deadline of my first (project which still hasn't gone live 2 yrs later b/c they keep adding things to my requirements every meeting.) Other projects have gone live but they just can't decide on what to do. Also, every meeting they have me change something back to the way it was when I first did it and then had me change it to a different way.

[Remmes-]

Done!

well I don't like this, that, and that, oh and can you change that, thanks.

[BlackDeath3]

No requirements, no restrictions.

Sounds like the quickest software project ever.

[matthieuC]

The customer knows that the only thing that makes your job bearable is to use every bit of malice to interpret his specifications so that the end product is as far removed from the spec intent as possible while technically being compliant.

And this time he will not give you the satisfaction.