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> You know what they want because they told you, up front, when they hired you. This is, very often, a fatal mistake, and what they hired you to do is not what

> You know what they want because they told you, up front, when they hired you. This is, very often, a fatal mistake, and what they hired you to do is not what they need, nor what they want you to do in three weeks, let alone three days.

jlokier 5y ago
Sure but now that's just arguing in circles. Whatever I'd say about what they've shown they need in a simplified example for discussion, you can find a matching argument that it's not what they really need, but that argument doesn't address anything. It's a "no true scotsman". Assume for the sake of the point, that you are a competent and experienced dev, and somehow you have correctly ascertained something that the customer needs, most likely by talking with them. The point of this discussion is to ask, are there circumstances where someone needs to "work on one's own" for a while before others will recognise a solution is in progress to the clear need of their customer. And are there circumstances where not doing that will result in the solution being blocked, without any other useful replacement taking its place. There are countless anecdotes, and in all walks of life not just software development, pointing to the answers to both of those questions being a strong yes.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  That's your mistake; it's not a matter of competency and experience. You are not a solo venture, you are a member of a team, and part of that team needs to be a customer representative who can tell you, in real time, what the customer wants. There is no room for a hero engineer in modern software development. That's not how it works anymore, and it may never have worked that way. Your countless anecdotes of this working stack only a fraction as high as the countless anecdotes of what you're describing completely failing. This battle was fought in the 00s and won in the early 2010s. Agile produces results, waterfall generally does not.

jlokier 5y ago

Sure but now that's just arguing in circles. Whatever I'd say about what they've shown they need in a simplified example for discussion, you can find a matching argument that it's not what they really need, but that argument doesn't address anything. It's a "no true scotsman". Assume for the sake of the point, that you are a competent and experienced dev, and somehow you have correctly ascertained something that the customer needs, most likely by talking with them. The point of this discussion is to ask, are there circumstances where someone needs to "work on one's own" for a while before others will recognise a solution is in progress to the clear need of their customer. And are there circumstances where not doing that will result in the solution being blocked, without any other useful replacement taking its place. There are countless anecdotes, and in all walks of life not just software development, pointing to the answers to both of those questions being a strong yes.

TameAntelope 5y ago
That's your mistake; it's not a matter of competency and experience. You are not a solo venture, you are a member of a team, and part of that team needs to be a customer representative who can tell you, in real time, what the customer wants. There is no room for a hero engineer in modern software development. That's not how it works anymore, and it may never have worked that way. Your countless anecdotes of this working stack only a fraction as high as the countless anecdotes of what you're describing completely failing. This battle was fought in the 00s and won in the early 2010s. Agile produces results, waterfall generally does not.