January 15, 2015 at 2:48 pm
First, I want to thank Steve for these lovely little tidbits about interacting with others. It's a much bigger part of the job than many realize. This one on empathy and the one on "blameless post-mortems" were exceptionally timely for me - I've forwarded them on to co-workers so we can have some discussions on how to improve our working conditions.
Second, my experience has mirrored many of the stories already told. I long ago replaced "what do you want / need" with "what problem are you grappling with" types of questions. The end solutions are generally very different than the original requests, and the end users are always pleased with the results.
I'm wondering if anyone else has had this experience, though: the users typically think that the most complex solutions are "easy to do" and the easy ones are "so complex to do maybe I shouldn't ask". I can't tell you how many times the user has asked for one thing because what they really want seems over the top, and through our problem solving steps I find out what they really wanted is the simpler / faster / cheaper solution to their issue.
They didn't need a catapult, trampoline or net, what they really needed was a telescope. 😛
Steph Brown
January 16, 2015 at 7:08 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/15/2015)
isaacchk (1/15/2015)
Steve - I don't think I get the last sentence "just asking a business person to tell me what to do often results in neither of us being successful." Could you elaborate more?I've had people say things like "I need you to add a widget for choosing xx" to a form/page. Say, let's add a checkbox to the form that lets me choose if I want to show inactive orders. However that's not the problem, and once I add the checkbox, they come back to say that the form doesn't give them the info, or they were really looking for a way to find old orders for a customer. That might be a new form, or a change to a process.
What I've found is that users don't often view an application as I do, and when they ask for a specific item, it's because they have a task they need. They think the specific item meets it, but because they don't understand the application, it doesn't work.
It's the same for me as a developer. I think that I'm managing process x, so I build an application. However the user really needs to do x+y, and so my app falls short. Poor requirements? Maybe. Poor communication? Certainly. However I think it's more that we too often don't speak the same language, or have the same frame of reference. If I embed myself in the business a bit more and learn what they need, I usually build something better.
Thank you Steve. And yes I do agree sometimes unnecessary argument arises because of the lack of same frame of reference. The business users and the developers are talking apple to orange.
January 16, 2015 at 8:38 am
Ah, yes, how true. Technology is just a tool, and end users just want it to work. Perhaps why so many users are switching to Mac's. (hint to MS. Now that Ballmer is gone, fix the problems).
What I find more interesting is that when an IT person has an IT problem, many react in the same way that non-IT people react. How many times has a developer, or IT worker/manager/executive come out and said something like "...the [fill in tech widget name] does not work, fix it..." all without adding any detail.
So here is to all those who handle any sort of tech support calls!
The more you are prepared, the less you need it.
January 16, 2015 at 10:52 am
I was in one of my first programming jobs and we had one of those 'company retreats' that can sometimes waste a day and provide nothing new. For a change, this one was well-facilitated and I learned a lot. The most valuable thing was a revolutionary and simple concept:
"Don't just treat your clients like clients. Treat everyone you meet like your client."
It's changed my IT career for the better, but its value isn't limited to IT. It's a viewpoint that can facilitate the operation of almost any business.
Sigerson
"No pressure, no diamonds." - Thomas Carlyle
January 16, 2015 at 11:11 am
The Stephen Covey 7 Habits might be a simple answer but I think what is really going on is this:
The company is a system.
The IT department is a sub-system.
A sub-system is a system that must first focus on its own survival.
A sub-system must secondly maintain or improve the health of the system in order to survive in the long run.
Therefore, empathy is really a balancing of these two viewpoints affecting the intelligent creation of a solution to the current problem.
January 16, 2015 at 2:27 pm
I agree with most of what you said here, Steve. But sometimes, for reasons I've never understood, the solutions I've proposed haven't been adopted. Instead everything just stayed the same. Even though what I proposed would make things better, faster or cheaper. Granted that doesn't happen often, but when it does I've always had the feeling that something political was going on. And I'm not the number 1 politically savvy person.
Rod
January 18, 2015 at 6:06 am
Stephanie J Brown (1/15/2015)
I'm wondering if anyone else has had this experience, though: the users typically think that the most complex solutions are "easy to do" and the easy ones are "so complex to do maybe I shouldn't ask". I can't tell you how many times the user has asked for one thing because what they really want seems over the top, and through our problem solving steps I find out what they really wanted is the simpler / faster / cheaper solution to their issue.They didn't need a catapult, trampoline or net, what they really needed was a telescope. 😛
Indeed, that is why it is always worth putting the developer over the user's shoulder as they grapple with the frustrating situation. Together they will often realize that the requested fix was still just a workaround, and the real solution is something else. And fixing it right is always cheaper in the long run!
January 20, 2015 at 3:56 pm
Andrew..Peterson (1/16/2015)
Ah, yes, how true. Technology is just a tool, and end users just want it to work. Perhaps why so many users are switching to Mac's. (hint to MS. Now that Ballmer is gone, fix the problems).
My home system is a 27" iMac i7 with 16 gig of memory, in my backpack next to me is an Air laptop. I run Parallels and Win 7 when I need SQL or Access. I scrapped my home Windows systems years ago, though there's a possibility that I may acquire another for development and games. It's all my wife's fault: the observatory's data center is exclusively *nix, most non-Apple boxes are probably running Red Hat. It's really nice having computers that don't crash and don't have to be updated weekly (or so it seems).
I just finished cleaning up a data set for a test load that came from Excel. It had five duplicate records that should not have been there, one child with a birth date of October 35th, and a kid with a last name of Null. And this is data uploaded to a federal register. I hope whoever is responsible for this did a good job of cleaning it and found the problems that I did.
In the future, this will come from my database and will be cleaner. Pretty much anything is doable with computers, it's a matter of time and sometimes budget.
And Steve, thanks for the link. Now I want a fire-breathing pony!
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
February 9, 2015 at 10:31 am
A spot on article and some great comments however I have come across exceptions once or twice to the "no one was intentionally trying to be difficult" sentiment.
I would say that the best position is to assume that no one wants to be a pain just for the sake of it and those that do will make life a misery if you act unprofessionally.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
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