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I literally had someone tell me once after a demo of progress on a project: "That may be what I asked for but its not what I want".

51Cards 6y ago
Brings back memories of my favourite poem: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/fcc/humor/twas.html http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/fcc/humor/twas.html
pastorhudson 6y ago
Depending on the tone that could show a lot of self awareness. I’d respond “I totally understand! That’s why we said at the get go this stuff is hard. Sometimes we can’t see what we want till we try to build it. Let’s figure out what’s off about this and setup some more sprints.”
- arethuza 6y ago
  I very much took the tone to mean: "I'm a very senior manager at this company and I can be as unreasonable as I want and you can't do much about it". It was an internal project at a large company and there was a fair amount of politics. I just loved how he managed to say something like that without a trace of contrition - not like this was the first time he'd seen it.
csours 6y ago
This is my default understanding of all requirements. Listen to your customers, but don't do what they ask for.
adrianmonk 6y ago
I believe one of the main benefits of demos is to expose that disconnect. You can ask people to think through how the software should work, and they may earnestly do their best, and they may give you clear answers about what they truly believe they want. But put the actual software in front of them and show it in operation or (better) have them try to use it, and suddenly a bunch of new insights will become crystal clear to them. In theory, people could reason through all this stuff, but it's not how most people's minds work. It's a natural tendency to avoid engaging your mind in what feels too hypothetical. Most people need to feel like they're in the actual situation before the mental juices really start flowing. The corollary is that the earlier you can do a demo, the less time you waste working toward requirements that are wrong. If all other things are equal, doing demos as early as possible should minimize that.

51Cards 6y ago

Brings back memories of my favourite poem: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/fcc/humor/twas.html http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/fcc/humor/twas.html

pastorhudson 6y ago

Depending on the tone that could show a lot of self awareness. I’d respond “I totally understand! That’s why we said at the get go this stuff is hard. Sometimes we can’t see what we want till we try to build it. Let’s figure out what’s off about this and setup some more sprints.”

arethuza 6y ago
I very much took the tone to mean: "I'm a very senior manager at this company and I can be as unreasonable as I want and you can't do much about it". It was an internal project at a large company and there was a fair amount of politics. I just loved how he managed to say something like that without a trace of contrition - not like this was the first time he'd seen it.

csours 6y ago

This is my default understanding of all requirements. Listen to your customers, but don't do what they ask for.

adrianmonk 6y ago

I believe one of the main benefits of demos is to expose that disconnect. You can ask people to think through how the software should work, and they may earnestly do their best, and they may give you clear answers about what they truly believe they want. But put the actual software in front of them and show it in operation or (better) have them try to use it, and suddenly a bunch of new insights will become crystal clear to them. In theory, people could reason through all this stuff, but it's not how most people's minds work. It's a natural tendency to avoid engaging your mind in what feels too hypothetical. Most people need to feel like they're in the actual situation before the mental juices really start flowing. The corollary is that the earlier you can do a demo, the less time you waste working toward requirements that are wrong. If all other things are equal, doing demos as early as possible should minimize that.