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I'm not keen on the orange juice analogy either but I do agree with the gist of it. You ask if a certain task or project can be accomplished and the people who

by dazc 8y ago

I'm not keen on the orange juice analogy either but I do agree with the gist of it. You ask if a certain task or project can be accomplished and the people who say yes without any hint of a problem are almost certain to be the people who let you down. The guy who asks for more information and, maybe, presents you with reasons why your project isn't so simple as you thought is much more likely to deliver.

itronitron 8y ago
This also gets to the fact that one of the top priorities (for the PM) is to minimize risk and that entails knowing/learning the options. Someone that can identify the risks and costs as well as recommend a better solution or present other options is providing a lot of value and building a lot of trust.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  I think what's annoying many here is not that they disagree with you. It's that they agree with you but don't like his strategy for finding out if the counterpart is this way. Putting people through tests is not negotiating, and it sounds like he thinks it is. Look at it from a hotel manager's perspective. Let's say he normally is willing to negotiate, so he'd want to say "That is difficult because of X - would you consider Y instead?" But he's also wise enough to see he is being tested, and is this is triggering all types of alarms in his head. He's had his own repertoire of bad clients, and so instead of negotiating, he'll put him through his own tests. He'll just say "No" and see if the client is willing to negotiate or is adamant, and see if the client fails the test. I'm not in the business so I can't say for sure. Sitting here, I find it to be a poor assumption to assume the client has the upper hand (because he has business to offer and money in hand) over the hotel manager - and this person comes off as assuming as much. Consider that the hotel manager may have other options, or that this type of a deal is a net negative for him (even if the hotel is well compensated for this, there are non-financial costs).
MrEfficiency 8y ago
> the people who say yes without any hint of a problem are almost certain to be the people who let you down. Idk, people ask, "CAN YOU MAKE THIS APP?", I always answer, "I can". If someone asked me if I can build some robotic thing, I'd answer "I can". If they asked me "Can you build X in Y Weeks?" then I need to know the project. I have been able to do pretty much everything thrown at me. The biggest question is how long we have and specifying what we actually want.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  But then they ask "Can you put 45 cases of cans onto a grocery store shelf per hour, for 6 hours straight, every weeknight between the hours of 10pm and 4am?"
  - MrEfficiency 8y ago
    "Possibly, can I see the details of this task? I can work the hours, but I'm not sure the logistics and ergonomics of transporting that quantity of material."
- Steltek 8y ago
  If they ask simple questions, that might be a warning for you as well that they're in over their heads. It also seems to me that in this scenario, you'd be the subject matter expert and would need to set the right expectations so that everyone walks away happy in the end.
cityzen 8y ago
I can't tell you the # of agencies and consultants I've had to work with that said all the right things and turned out to be steaming piles of hot garbage when it came to delivering the work.
hrktb 8y ago
I found the test to be unpractical in that you need accurate prior knowledge of how difficult the task will be to the subject, which makes the whole situation weird. If the hotel you are talking to is ready to make crazy things at crazy prices, they will answer “yes” to anything that can be solved by throwing money at the problem. On the other hand, for hotels that don’t deal with lunatics, they will refuse to deal with you the moment they smell your problem is bullshit or unreasonable. In the end, I’d think false positives would be extremely frequent with that approach.
- hobbyjogger 8y ago
  Good point. I worked one summer at a five-star hotel in a ski town in the rockies. At various times and for various clients (typically on short notice) we (1) hosted a banquet for a former U.S. president that involved locking down the hotel with the secret service, (2) drove 2 of the hotel's SUVs 100+ miles round trip to buy dozens upon dozens of suitcases for a member of the Saudi royal family, (3) turned a conference room into a fiber connected operations center for a team of high-frequency traders that was visiting from NYC for two weeks. I am certain that the hotel manager would have told all of these guests that we would absolutely find a way to handle their requests, no problem. And we did. That is part of the reason they were at that particular hotel in the first place.

by dazc 8y ago

itronitron 8y ago

This also gets to the fact that one of the top priorities (for the PM) is to minimize risk and that entails knowing/learning the options. Someone that can identify the risks and costs as well as recommend a better solution or present other options is providing a lot of value and building a lot of trust.

BeetleB 8y ago
I think what's annoying many here is not that they disagree with you. It's that they agree with you but don't like his strategy for finding out if the counterpart is this way. Putting people through tests is not negotiating, and it sounds like he thinks it is. Look at it from a hotel manager's perspective. Let's say he normally is willing to negotiate, so he'd want to say "That is difficult because of X - would you consider Y instead?" But he's also wise enough to see he is being tested, and is this is triggering all types of alarms in his head. He's had his own repertoire of bad clients, and so instead of negotiating, he'll put him through his own tests. He'll just say "No" and see if the client is willing to negotiate or is adamant, and see if the client fails the test. I'm not in the business so I can't say for sure. Sitting here, I find it to be a poor assumption to assume the client has the upper hand (because he has business to offer and money in hand) over the hotel manager - and this person comes off as assuming as much. Consider that the hotel manager may have other options, or that this type of a deal is a net negative for him (even if the hotel is well compensated for this, there are non-financial costs).

MrEfficiency 8y ago

> the people who say yes without any hint of a problem are almost certain to be the people who let you down. Idk, people ask, "CAN YOU MAKE THIS APP?", I always answer, "I can". If someone asked me if I can build some robotic thing, I'd answer "I can". If they asked me "Can you build X in Y Weeks?" then I need to know the project. I have been able to do pretty much everything thrown at me. The biggest question is how long we have and specifying what we actually want.

stephengillie 8y ago
But then they ask "Can you put 45 cases of cans onto a grocery store shelf per hour, for 6 hours straight, every weeknight between the hours of 10pm and 4am?"
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  "Possibly, can I see the details of this task? I can work the hours, but I'm not sure the logistics and ergonomics of transporting that quantity of material."
Steltek 8y ago
If they ask simple questions, that might be a warning for you as well that they're in over their heads. It also seems to me that in this scenario, you'd be the subject matter expert and would need to set the right expectations so that everyone walks away happy in the end.

cityzen 8y ago

I can't tell you the # of agencies and consultants I've had to work with that said all the right things and turned out to be steaming piles of hot garbage when it came to delivering the work.

hrktb 8y ago

I found the test to be unpractical in that you need accurate prior knowledge of how difficult the task will be to the subject, which makes the whole situation weird. If the hotel you are talking to is ready to make crazy things at crazy prices, they will answer “yes” to anything that can be solved by throwing money at the problem. On the other hand, for hotels that don’t deal with lunatics, they will refuse to deal with you the moment they smell your problem is bullshit or unreasonable. In the end, I’d think false positives would be extremely frequent with that approach.

hobbyjogger 8y ago
Good point. I worked one summer at a five-star hotel in a ski town in the rockies. At various times and for various clients (typically on short notice) we (1) hosted a banquet for a former U.S. president that involved locking down the hotel with the secret service, (2) drove 2 of the hotel's SUVs 100+ miles round trip to buy dozens upon dozens of suitcases for a member of the Saudi royal family, (3) turned a conference room into a fiber connected operations center for a team of high-frequency traders that was visiting from NYC for two weeks. I am certain that the hotel manager would have told all of these guests that we would absolutely find a way to handle their requests, no problem. And we did. That is part of the reason they were at that particular hotel in the first place.