Current Events > I think my least favourite thing about software development is expectations.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It goes like this, almost without fail:

Client: Hi I'd like some method of sitting down at a desk some times, any ideas?
Developer: How about a chair?
Client: Wow that's amazing! How does that work?
Developer: Well we would create a sturdy object that gives you space to sit on, with 3 or 4 legs.
Client: Wow that's perfect and exactly what we need.
Developer: There's also some scope in the development pipeline to add a cushion and a backrest
Client: Amazing. That's so clever.
*6 months later*
Client: We need this chair to have a footbath installed and also automatically zoom around the office via a remote control, and have an in built TV on the backrest. Urgent response required.
Developer: Well we can do that first one and it will cost X. The second one we can't do, the third makes no sense at all.
Client: This is unacceptable, and frankly we don't think we should have to pay for features which should come as standard in the first place. It's your responsibility to make the product fit for purpose.

How very fucking quickly what was an amazing practical feature they didn't dream of becomes something they are unhappy with because it doesn't fulfil all of their wildest fantasies -_-

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That's why you do a statement of work with concrete deliverables and a requirements doc that the customer signs off on first.

if you don't properly scope your work and tie it directly to your funding, then it's on you when a customer turns around and says "that's not what I wanted."

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s0nicfan posted...

That's why you do a statement of work with concrete deliverables and a requirements doc that the customer signs off on first.

Oh I know, but inevitably the client forgets about all of this and still sends these shitty emails. I don't like having to have meetings with someone who is very furious and very stupid, explaining that what they got is literally what they agreed to and paid for.

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Mine is all the pointless methodology and buzzwords

hey bro lets have an agile scrum to update our knowledge on ITIL processes

can we just do the work

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pinky0926 posted...

Client: Hi I'd like some method of sitting down at a desk some times, any ideas?
Developer: How about a chair?

Honestly this is where you fucked up

Dont jump straight to solutions. Ask more questions and understand the underlying needs better.

Though tbh this is also why devs shouldnt be the ones collecting requirements
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Turtlebread posted...

Mine is all the pointless methodology and buzzwords

hey bro lets have an agile scrum to update our knowledge on ITIL processes

can we just do the work

Even worse when you have to translate the jargon from the marketing team.

"What we need is the narrative on the main real estate the reflect the central brand mission."
That's nice Sarah, so you want some text you're gonna write to appear on the homepage. Got it.

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g980 posted...

Honestly this is where you fucked up

Dont jump straight to solutions. Ask more questions and understand the underlying needs better.

Though tbh this is also why devs shouldnt be the ones collecting requirements

Best not to take my paraphrased rant too literally, there was a proper Q/A workshop/requirements meeting/scoping/quoting/signing off fucking everything, there always is

But clients are clients, and what blows their mind on monday bores them by wednesday.

(And yes, the underlying needs was and still is literally just a chair, but there's always a mover and shaker who watched a documentary on Amazon yesterday and feels the need to revolutionise everything all of a sudden)

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