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Project manager was talking to coworker about programming time on another system. I walked up just in time to hear the CLASSIC Programmer vs. Non-Programmer/User discussion.
(Hint: programmer, in this context, is not a compliment. A good programmer, a software engineer if you will, should avoid being on the programmer side of this conversation!)
P: "This is what the computer does."
U: "This is what I need it to do. Can you do that?"
P: "But this is what the computer does."
Ironically, the computer is probably going to go on doing what it was. It would cost us a lot to change it for this one site, and there's a workaround that will work about as well.
The project manager, however, wanted more advantages to the client than just "that's how we do it". Strange how that is. And it took us five minutes of discussing the general nature of the beast, when I stated the obvious, and then we both realized what we were missing. Project manager had just said that we wanted to convince them to change to the simpler ("this is what it does") scheme. I said, "Yeah, (the other) will be a lot of customization if you do it."
Duhhh. We charge more, not only for customizations (this site's already priced, so...), but for upgrades to customizations. Huge advantage to the client: stay baseline, not pay through nose each time upgrade desired in that system.
I love random conversations. And that one made me feel vaguely helpful. Tonight's going pretty well - once people started clearing out for the day, I started getting things done quicker. *nods*
(Hint: programmer, in this context, is not a compliment. A good programmer, a software engineer if you will, should avoid being on the programmer side of this conversation!)
P: "This is what the computer does."
U: "This is what I need it to do. Can you do that?"
P: "But this is what the computer does."
Ironically, the computer is probably going to go on doing what it was. It would cost us a lot to change it for this one site, and there's a workaround that will work about as well.
The project manager, however, wanted more advantages to the client than just "that's how we do it". Strange how that is. And it took us five minutes of discussing the general nature of the beast, when I stated the obvious, and then we both realized what we were missing. Project manager had just said that we wanted to convince them to change to the simpler ("this is what it does") scheme. I said, "Yeah, (the other) will be a lot of customization if you do it."
Duhhh. We charge more, not only for customizations (this site's already priced, so...), but for upgrades to customizations. Huge advantage to the client: stay baseline, not pay through nose each time upgrade desired in that system.
I love random conversations. And that one made me feel vaguely helpful. Tonight's going pretty well - once people started clearing out for the day, I started getting things done quicker. *nods*
