Stop Sign Designed by Committee

[Mr. Analog]

http://usedwigs.com/video-stop-sign-designed-by-committee/

Title says it all, the joys of group think!

[Darren Dirt]

lol REAL web address in there...

http://www.pleasepause.com/

[Thorin]

I did notice that the designer didn't bother pointing out the flaws in the decisions even though he clearly saw them (what with the eye-rolling and exasperated sighing and all).

[Mr. Analog]

I did notice that the designer didn't bother pointing out the flaws in the decisions even though he clearly saw them (what with the eye-rolling and exasperated sighing and all).

You know why this struck home for me? The designers job was to take the client suggestions and build what the the client wanted and not what they needed. This happens all the time in IT consulting. It takes a gifted individual to tell the client what they need and convince them that they want it, and sadly, those individuals are rare.

The only thing I'm not sure about is what would be a worse trap, being an in-house designer in this situation or someone who had already bid on and won a contract for the job?

[Darren Dirt]

It takes a gifted individual to tell the client what they need and convince them that they want it, and sadly, those individuals are rare.

That's because most of us would quickly run out of patience with clients like those depicted in the video.


Seriously though, I like to think of myself as one of those rare individuals -- but thankfully at Ag the clients are for the most part very open to suggestions and objections that are sometimes even 100% opposite to what they originally thought they wanted. Speak boldly and confidently, and the client will comply.

[Mr. Analog]

It takes a gifted individual to tell the client what they need and convince them that they want it, and sadly, those individuals are rare.

That's because most of us would quickly run out of patience with clients like those depicted in the video.


Seriously though, I like to think of myself as one of those rare individuals -- but thankfully at Ag the clients are for the most part very open to suggestions and objections that are sometimes even 100% opposite to what they originally thought they wanted. Speak boldly and confidently, and the client will comply.

In my case I'm always on the receiving end of these bad decisions as they are usually agreed to by higher ups.

The best thing ever is when I'm tasked with something that has a concrete goal and I am not given any limitations (other than time & materials). Some of my best work has been where I was able to leave implementation details to myself or within the development team.

[Tom]

It takes a gifted individual to tell the client what they need and convince them that they want it, and sadly, those individuals are rare.

That's because most of us would quickly run out of patience with clients like those depicted in the video.


Seriously though, I like to think of myself as one of those rare individuals -- but thankfully at Ag the clients are for the most part very open to suggestions and objections that are sometimes even 100% opposite to what they originally thought they wanted. Speak boldly and confidently, and the client will comply.

In my case I'm always on the receiving end of these bad decisions as they are usually agreed to by higher ups.

The best thing ever is when I'm tasked with something that has a concrete goal and I am not given any limitations (other than time & materials). Some of my best work has been where I was able to leave implementation details to myself or within the development team.

Ugh, the worst is when the management has already picked out the implementation details. Thats the stupidest idea ever. All they should do is give their ACTUAL requirements and let the people do their darned jobs.

[Thorin]

No, the worst thing is when management decides the deadline, then asks how long it's gonna take, all the while not saying what they really expect it to do.  Doesn't matter how much time you spend figuring out the implementation details, because you guessed wrong at what they really wanted anyway.

Wait, I can make that worse - when management hires a brand-new guy to do all the development.  This is worse because 1) the new guy knows nothing about the domain for which the software is being written, 2) the new guy is probably not as good of a developer as his hyped-up resume suggested to management.

Seriously, when hiring developers, at least have technical people talk to the candidates!

[Mr. Analog]

Actually I'd say the worst is a combination of those things:

So we're starting a new project! It's an AJAX enabled website with an ADA backend, we need it done in a month and it should be like Amazon.com, did I mention we don't know what it should look like yet and that the clients need two weeks to test it?

Sometimes I don't mind AMS all that much really, at least there I know what kind of @%&# I'm stepping into every day!