note
Biker
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Trust me that the problem is shared. I've got som 20+ years developing software in different contries and the problem description hasn't changed.
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Furthermore, at least in my case, it's not at all limited to The Management (bows in deep respect and keeps job) but just as flagrant for any user of my/our software.
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It's very common that when our user community calls us up with an idea:
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<li>We do an analyze of the idea and presents the analyze to the user</li>
<li>The user says that it's great</li>
<li>We ask the user to somehow commit to the requirements (at least in an internal e-mail, asking for a physical signature would be politically incorrect.)</li>
<li>The user studies the requirements for the first time ;-)</li>
<li>The user organizes a set of meetings with other users to make sure that the decision becomes a "concencus decision", i.e. an "it wasn't me deciding that" decision</li>
<li>The user comes back to me/us saying that it's OK</li>
<li>We develop a prototype with an interface without guts, all according to the requirements agreed upon</li>
<li>The user immediately finds that the interface must change; "Put this button to the left of that button"</li>
<li>We make the changes of button placement</li>
<li>The user agrees and wants to use the application the same day</li>
<li>I/we tell the user that we can now write the guts of the application</li>
<li>The user complains</li>
<li>We write the guts of the application</li>
<li>The user "tests" the application during five minutes and agrees to put it in production</li>
<li>We ask the user to somewhat confirm that, at least in an internal e-mail</li>
<li>The user tests the application for more than twenty minutes and let's us know that the functionality is not what s/he wants</li>
<li>We show that the application does what the user asked for</li>
<li>The user ignores our arguments and tells us what s/he <em>really</em> wants</li>
<li>We write down what the user says and ask the user to confirm, at least in an internal e-mail</li>
<li>The user goes back to his/her colleagues...</li>
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A few cycles of the above and we can put the first release in production. That's when the user realizes that the production application doesn't do what s/he needs...
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<HR>
Everything went worng, just as foreseen.
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