"underwear on first"

nicholas on 2007-04-04T22:33:27

Scrottie doesn't seem to be having a good day :-(

It reminds me of a company, where the ticket for one of the development tasks I was assigned started "Now that we've signed the contract with $third_party we need to work out whether it's possible to deliver what is described in the agreement." And what do you, dear mis-management, think I the programmer am going to do, if it turns out not to be possible? Perhaps it would have been a good idea to ask the programmers first, before making promises that you may not be able to keep.

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I like to use this analogy...

Alias on 2007-04-05T00:49:29

My favorite way to explain this is to put a dollar value on things.

So if a biz/sales guy says we can do something, it's a "$1000 promise" or a "$100,000 promise" or a "$1,000,000 promise".

These guys know dollars. If they have to make a $100,000 promise and make the techies life hell to secure a $10,000,000 deal, so be it. Lets face it, most things are possible, they just sometimes have unbelievably large price tags on them.

Then it's just a case of having them check which promise are $100,000 promises. Which is a little easier, because they look bad if they make a $100,000 promise on a $10,000 deal.

Re:I like to use this analogy...

drhyde on 2007-04-05T15:38:24

I don't understand.

If the company makes my life hell, I don't care how much money is involved (unless a lot of it will go to me as a bonus, I suppose, but that's unlikely). I'm just going to quit and get a job with nicer people.