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When the customer demands a written explanation of exactly why a small change took 4 hours, an engineer has to investigate that completely and write up an analy
by droithomme 7y ago
When the customer demands a written explanation of exactly why a small change took 4 hours, an engineer has to investigate that completely and write up an analysis in language and sufficient detail for the customer to understand. The given letter would take me a couple hours to revise and get the wording just right and diplomatic. Since the customer is challenging the billing and there is the subtext of fraud, the letter needs to be approved by management and reviewed by legal. The engineer and others are also taken off other tasks to work on this letter project. Providing a legally sound and technically accurate letter of this nature likely costs around $1000 to provide, plus lost opportunity cost.
- zoomablemind 7y agoExactly! When requests like this start popping in, it signals some ongoing distrust or latent disagreement between devs and the client. If I were that client, a response of that kind would rather infuriate me as mudding the "clear" picture I see. I believe, in this case, there's a bigger issue to address - the issue of trust and responsibilities. If client's expectations about how things should be done overpower his understanding of what the devs do, then projects/contract assessments probably missed the target audience. To realign such expectations the team needs more than just a bark back email.