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Every enterprise project ever. If you don't set personal boundaries at the outset, that client is just going to ride you until you drop. Consider what people w

Every enterprise project ever. If you don't set personal boundaries at the outset, that client is just going to ride you until you drop. Consider what people who don't make things actually do for a living. They "manage" dynamics, which means you have a black box with inputs and outputs, and your job is to constantly tweak and regulate the inputs to increase the outputs. The black box in this case is the author's project, which he is describing being tweaked and regulated to produce an output. The problem is the author demonstrated to the customer out of the gate that being dominated gives the desired output, and so the author received the behaviour he specifically rewarded. A product manager or owner can handle a dominating customer by managing those boundaries. Not all PMs do, but this customer would have been manageable if either the author or his boss had a spine. Consider that the extreme of agreeableness becomes oily, deceptive, and even mendacious when someone is pushed past their limit, which is why so many managers can seem untrustworthy. The cycle was that this "Alpha" customer kept pushing to see if the author had a bottom or backbone, and when he didn't find one, he became less and less trusting, pushing even more and then finally just taking control of a process he perceived as out of control for lack of anything solid.

kemiller2002 6y ago
The saddest part of people's education in this field is that no one tells us the details about software development. Programming is about computers, but software development is about people. When I was starting out no one explained to me that everything at work is a negotiation. Always being agreeable isn't good for you and really not the person you're talking to either. You need to come to an understanding with them that if they are asking for something, you are going to define for them what they should expect in return. At times, sure, you say, "Yeah that's no big deal." and other times, it's "This isn't a wise decision we need to take another path." Most of the time it's somewhere in the middle and you need to understand how to talk to someone to come to a compromise and get what you want to. I worked for a company where one of the owners signed a contract that said we would do "some" enhancements to an existing system, and the client defined when the project was complete. Amazingly the executives were dumbfounded when the client took full advantage of the word "some" and wouldn't pay until everything they wanted was complete.
geon 6y ago
Thanks for your insight. You may very well be right about the client looking for more resistance. How could I have given more resistance? I don’t see how I could have had more of a “spine” without it turning into a shouting match. But perhaps that was what the client wanted? Having had all my opinions so completely disregarded was very frustrating. I seriously do not believe it would have been possible to somehow educate the client and help them understand the need for my suggested changes. The only option left was dropping them. Or was there any other solution?
- motohagiography 6y ago
  The longer it was left, the harder the change would have been as by the time you had to drop them, the relationship was considered unsalvageable by all parties. I think your boss should have taken more ownership earlier. Turning it around probably wasn't going to happen because it would have been a 180 renegotiation of how you related. To be fair, the customer also seemed to hustle you with a variation of "if you're a good guy, do me this small favour?" followed up with, "why won't you do me this next favour, I thought you were a good guy, now I'm unhappy..." and then leveraged the sunk cost you already put into the project to add incremental scope. The conversations I have begin with things like, "let's decide on outcomes and we'll get you there." Full stop. This is before you start working, because if you start working without an agreed outcome, your project is not delivering professional service value, it's being their employee. You're doing the favour. I get Agile is iterative with constant customer feedback, and this customer wanted a waterfall commitment process, but the job of your boss (imo) was to bridge those needs. It's great when a customer is happy, but that's the effect of providing value and solving their problems, happiness itself is not the job. I wouldn't worry about shouting matches, they're just a front. It's never the biggest dog that barks. Personally, I'm immediately suspicious of people who act unhappy because they only act that way because they think it works. So there wasn't a tactical change that would have made this relationship different, but there is a different way to relate in general that will ensure it doesn't happen again.
  - geon 6y ago
    Thanks. Very insightful. > To be fair, the customer also seemed to hustle you with a variation of "if you're a good guy, do me this small favour?" followed up with, "why won't you do me this next favour, I thought you were a good guy, now I'm unhappy..." Yup. Was I being manipulated?

kemiller2002 6y ago

The saddest part of people's education in this field is that no one tells us the details about software development. Programming is about computers, but software development is about people. When I was starting out no one explained to me that everything at work is a negotiation. Always being agreeable isn't good for you and really not the person you're talking to either. You need to come to an understanding with them that if they are asking for something, you are going to define for them what they should expect in return. At times, sure, you say, "Yeah that's no big deal." and other times, it's "This isn't a wise decision we need to take another path." Most of the time it's somewhere in the middle and you need to understand how to talk to someone to come to a compromise and get what you want to. I worked for a company where one of the owners signed a contract that said we would do "some" enhancements to an existing system, and the client defined when the project was complete. Amazingly the executives were dumbfounded when the client took full advantage of the word "some" and wouldn't pay until everything they wanted was complete.

geon 6y ago

Thanks for your insight. You may very well be right about the client looking for more resistance. How could I have given more resistance? I don’t see how I could have had more of a “spine” without it turning into a shouting match. But perhaps that was what the client wanted? Having had all my opinions so completely disregarded was very frustrating. I seriously do not believe it would have been possible to somehow educate the client and help them understand the need for my suggested changes. The only option left was dropping them. Or was there any other solution?

motohagiography 6y ago
The longer it was left, the harder the change would have been as by the time you had to drop them, the relationship was considered unsalvageable by all parties. I think your boss should have taken more ownership earlier. Turning it around probably wasn't going to happen because it would have been a 180 renegotiation of how you related. To be fair, the customer also seemed to hustle you with a variation of "if you're a good guy, do me this small favour?" followed up with, "why won't you do me this next favour, I thought you were a good guy, now I'm unhappy..." and then leveraged the sunk cost you already put into the project to add incremental scope. The conversations I have begin with things like, "let's decide on outcomes and we'll get you there." Full stop. This is before you start working, because if you start working without an agreed outcome, your project is not delivering professional service value, it's being their employee. You're doing the favour. I get Agile is iterative with constant customer feedback, and this customer wanted a waterfall commitment process, but the job of your boss (imo) was to bridge those needs. It's great when a customer is happy, but that's the effect of providing value and solving their problems, happiness itself is not the job. I wouldn't worry about shouting matches, they're just a front. It's never the biggest dog that barks. Personally, I'm immediately suspicious of people who act unhappy because they only act that way because they think it works. So there wasn't a tactical change that would have made this relationship different, but there is a different way to relate in general that will ensure it doesn't happen again.
- geon 6y ago
  Thanks. Very insightful. > To be fair, the customer also seemed to hustle you with a variation of "if you're a good guy, do me this small favour?" followed up with, "why won't you do me this next favour, I thought you were a good guy, now I'm unhappy..." Yup. Was I being manipulated?