Re: What about the client's needs? (was: What would Andrew do)

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I think what is most interesting about this is how feverishly people are
trying to "find out what I would do different." The assumption is that I
have no answer and thus everything I am saying is meaningless. 

The only thing out of all of this I might have done differently would be
to let go of the process a little quicker and try to conform my work to
the client's weird ways. That is it. 

My other point, which has been totally lost in this endless "process good,
chaos bad" debate was that broadcasting your problems to a public forum is
not always a good idea. As I said, if I was Elna's client and I found out
she was broadcasting the details of our lawsuit to a public forum, I would
be very angry. 

Beyond that - if you have a process and it works: good. If you think your
process is perfect: you're wrong. Process can NEVER replace intelligence. 

Beyond that, I encourage everybody to incessantly demand those around you
follow your process. Its a great way to make friends. 

Andrew Plato 

--- "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> wrote:
> Andrew Plato continued to play the client's advocate in this discussion:
> <<Yeah, I roll up my sleeves and get the job done. But where is the real
> fault here? To date, I've never had a client change deliverables that
> radically, or if they did we negotiated something.>>
> 
> I'd say the fault--if that's really what you want to call it--was that
> Elna
> was too patient with the client, and actually tried to help them develop
> a
> better process. Sometimes you just need to shrug and accept the fact
> that
> they like working inefficiently, and be glad that you're only working
> under
> contract. I know you're allergic to the P-word, but the fact is, you
> have
> the choice of using a process to help make things go better for everyone
> or
> you can use it to strangle people and prevent them from getting work
> done.
> Elna's process, in one or more variants, is perfectly sensible, and lies
> at
> the heart of anything _we_ do--and I'm including you in this group. 

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