Problematic Stakeholder: How can I make this work?
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
If you honestly want to salvage the situation you will have to become an educator. Teach the designer how to design. The the staff how to communicate their needs to the designer (teach them how critical this is to their future). Teach the boss how to understand your needs. Make sure things are very iterative and goals/milestones are easily reached and reviewed frequently (buzzword - agile). Make sure your communication is very simple and to the point (nobody seems to want or is capable of details). Only ask questions that require simple answers. Also, one last thing... communicate to him there are two kinds of knowledge you need as a developer: 1. Technical knowledge (which he is paying you for) 2. Domain/Business knowledge (which makes your tech skills more valuable to him as you can work more effectively) Domain/Business knowledge are things like "defense industry", or "medical IT", or "Retail and Point of Sale". Developers with the appropriate domain knowledge are critical for closing the gap when the business analist is missing or misses details.
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
Something like: "We can develop the code for the first screen as the designer has shown and then spend time to modify it for the changes that we know we'll need, OR we can spend some time up front to figure out exactly what we really want it to do and then develop that. The second way is almost certainly going to cost less! I admit, the second way will feel like we're not making any progress for awhile, but knowing what we're actually aiming for means we won't be wasting time and money working on the parts we'll change anyway."
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Well, the obvious thing to me is that the UI mockup won't be addressing edge cases - there's an education process that needs to be done here, so start off by working out what a couple of the edge cases are and asking how they would be addressed. One of the things I would address with him is the fact that a wrong design decision now will end up costing a lot more further down the line, and the processes you are following are designed to save him pain and money in the longer term. As we don't know what the business is, we can't offer much in the way of advice - but there's probably something analogous in his business that he has to approach properly otherwise it will go "belly up" for him. In other words, relating things to him in a way that's familiar will make it much easier to sell it to him.
Thanks -- good food for thought. Teach and train. I see a lot of deep breaths ahead, but seeing this thing work will be very rewarding. I like your suggestion about finding ways to relate to him. We are such completely different people... That's going to be tricky.
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Thanks -- good food for thought. Teach and train. I see a lot of deep breaths ahead, but seeing this thing work will be very rewarding. I like your suggestion about finding ways to relate to him. We are such completely different people... That's going to be tricky.
I regularly go through exercises like this with my clients. It's frustrating at first, but ultimately it's rewarding.
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Thanks -- good food for thought. Teach and train. I see a lot of deep breaths ahead, but seeing this thing work will be very rewarding. I like your suggestion about finding ways to relate to him. We are such completely different people... That's going to be tricky.
One of those edge cases must be mobile computing - can't put very much on a mobile screen before it starts looking pained...?
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If you honestly want to salvage the situation you will have to become an educator. Teach the designer how to design. The the staff how to communicate their needs to the designer (teach them how critical this is to their future). Teach the boss how to understand your needs. Make sure things are very iterative and goals/milestones are easily reached and reviewed frequently (buzzword - agile). Make sure your communication is very simple and to the point (nobody seems to want or is capable of details). Only ask questions that require simple answers. Also, one last thing... communicate to him there are two kinds of knowledge you need as a developer: 1. Technical knowledge (which he is paying you for) 2. Domain/Business knowledge (which makes your tech skills more valuable to him as you can work more effectively) Domain/Business knowledge are things like "defense industry", or "medical IT", or "Retail and Point of Sale". Developers with the appropriate domain knowledge are critical for closing the gap when the business analist is missing or misses details.
Excellent response. Thank you.
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One of those edge cases must be mobile computing - can't put very much on a mobile screen before it starts looking pained...?
Agreed. That is on the list :/
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Something like: "We can develop the code for the first screen as the designer has shown and then spend time to modify it for the changes that we know we'll need, OR we can spend some time up front to figure out exactly what we really want it to do and then develop that. The second way is almost certainly going to cost less! I admit, the second way will feel like we're not making any progress for awhile, but knowing what we're actually aiming for means we won't be wasting time and money working on the parts we'll change anyway."
Spot on - but you would be amazed by how little sense that would make to the owner. I found out after I was hired that he turned down a vendor for this project because they brought a big roll of butcher block paper and started mapping the old database. He said he didn't want to analyze and plan the thing to death, he just wanted to get going. I winced and said, "But... that's what you do!" I tried to explain "agile development" to him. He loved the idea until he realized that I'd still have to do planning and analysis before I started coding. :laugh:
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Spot on - but you would be amazed by how little sense that would make to the owner. I found out after I was hired that he turned down a vendor for this project because they brought a big roll of butcher block paper and started mapping the old database. He said he didn't want to analyze and plan the thing to death, he just wanted to get going. I winced and said, "But... that's what you do!" I tried to explain "agile development" to him. He loved the idea until he realized that I'd still have to do planning and analysis before I started coding. :laugh:
I find it difficult to believe that a successful small business owner wouldn't understand wasting money. (But I haven't met him, so...) If you can get a bit of the company's early history, relate it to the analysis he did before he committed to starting this particular business.
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Spot on - but you would be amazed by how little sense that would make to the owner. I found out after I was hired that he turned down a vendor for this project because they brought a big roll of butcher block paper and started mapping the old database. He said he didn't want to analyze and plan the thing to death, he just wanted to get going. I winced and said, "But... that's what you do!" I tried to explain "agile development" to him. He loved the idea until he realized that I'd still have to do planning and analysis before I started coding. :laugh:
It's the old aphorism - if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
Isfeasachme wrote:
How would you turn this into a win?
The user of the system told you how they wanted the system to work (the UI is the 'system' to them.) They suggested that you start with the first screen so they could look at it. Someone did a mock up and the user liked the mock up. And you don't like it. I must be missing something because the only problem I see in the above is you. Perhaps your description left out that the boss isn't actually a user of the system and doesn't in fact know how it is used? Hopefully that is it.
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Isfeasachme wrote:
How would you turn this into a win?
The user of the system told you how they wanted the system to work (the UI is the 'system' to them.) They suggested that you start with the first screen so they could look at it. Someone did a mock up and the user liked the mock up. And you don't like it. I must be missing something because the only problem I see in the above is you. Perhaps your description left out that the boss isn't actually a user of the system and doesn't in fact know how it is used? Hopefully that is it.
So, you can tell how a system works and what the rules behind it are just from a mockup? Wow, that is some talent you have there. Personally, I like to explore something called the use cases, but I'm quaint like that. You know, those things such as if I press a button here, what happens next.
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
Perhaps one way to communicate with your boss is to write an email laying out your concerns in an objective manner. However, as jschell has pointed out, he's paying you to do the job he tells you to, not the one you think you ought or want to be doing. Bite the bullet and get on with it and stop moaning - he isn't paying you to think, evidently. Besides, if he likes what he sees who are you to second guess him? It's his dime. If your real concern is how a poor outcome will look to the boss and on your resume then you should consider leaving and going somewhere where you can do it your own way.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
You are in pretty deep here. I think you may have missed a few opportunities along the way notwithstanding the personality of the owner. Were you hired to implement this ERP? What are the goals of this project? Does the owner understand the concept of requirements gathering or does he think you have all you need by looking at the existing one? In that case has he been given any idea of what a new system could offer. Are you fixated on some methodology? If he wants to work with screens I would have started by storyboarding the screens. This is often a good way of involving difficult actors and is a requirements gathering process. Many projects start in this way and follow a loosely Agile methodology. If he yells at you for asking questions, hell I don't know. Where to from there? If that is really the case you have hit a brick wall I would suggest because you are going to need his support. In the end you must take control while satisfying the owner that progress is being made.
Peter Wasser "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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It's the old aphorism - if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Is sounds like that is going to go down really well with this bloke!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Perhaps one way to communicate with your boss is to write an email laying out your concerns in an objective manner. However, as jschell has pointed out, he's paying you to do the job he tells you to, not the one you think you ought or want to be doing. Bite the bullet and get on with it and stop moaning - he isn't paying you to think, evidently. Besides, if he likes what he sees who are you to second guess him? It's his dime. If your real concern is how a poor outcome will look to the boss and on your resume then you should consider leaving and going somewhere where you can do it your own way.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures
Actually I disagree with you to a degree, IMHO you MUST go for the best outcome, the OP has obviously exhausted his own ideas and is looking for new ones. Just buckling under and creating rubbish (what the owner wants) knowing it will be a disaster is wrong. He needs to push back on the owner, whether with education or just being a more stubborn bastard or both, but it needs to be done. Worst case is he gets fired so this must be mitigated by the OPs personal situation.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Isfeasachme wrote:
How would you turn this into a win?
The user of the system told you how they wanted the system to work (the UI is the 'system' to them.) They suggested that you start with the first screen so they could look at it. Someone did a mock up and the user liked the mock up. And you don't like it. I must be missing something because the only problem I see in the above is you. Perhaps your description left out that the boss isn't actually a user of the system and doesn't in fact know how it is used? Hopefully that is it.
LOL I see it is your turn to be "that guy". Sorry -- This is not the thread for you.
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Actually I disagree with you to a degree, IMHO you MUST go for the best outcome, the OP has obviously exhausted his own ideas and is looking for new ones. Just buckling under and creating rubbish (what the owner wants) knowing it will be a disaster is wrong. He needs to push back on the owner, whether with education or just being a more stubborn bastard or both, but it needs to be done. Worst case is he gets fired so this must be mitigated by the OPs personal situation.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I'm looking for advice on how to deal with a problematic stakeholder/boss. If your advice has anything to do with quitting or leaving, save your breath. I'm well aware of that option. I'm interested in hearing ways to salvage the project. I joined a small business whose owner wanted to replace their failing DOS-based ERP with an ASP.NET solution. (Awesome, right?) My boss, the owner, is a 60 yr old, stocky bulldog whose tenacity is at the core of his successful business. Around the office he has the reputation for being a meddlesome teddy-bear. I am the only in-house developer. The biggest problem is that I can't seem to find a way to communicate with the owner. He has yelled at me multiple times for asking questions and drawing diagrams :confused:. He has shut down my attempts to understand the business, making it nearly impossible to put a game plan together. He doesn't understand the process of software development and constantly says things like, "Do we really need to do all that? Can't you just start with the first screen?" "Sure - what do you want the first screen to do?" "Exactly what it does right now?" "But it doesn't really suit the way your staff does business." "Well, we'll change the parts that don't work?" "Ok - How? What parts don't work? How should-" "Look we can just deal with that later. Let's just start building the first screen and go from there." I tried to explain that I need to understand the processes that I'm trying to support before I can 'design a screen'. Exasperated, the owner grabbed a fresh-out-of-college graphic designer in marketing and told her that she would be designing the layout and workflow of the new app. :wtf: A few weeks later I received a mock-up of a giant page with a billion fields and no discernible purpose. The owner loved it. He stopped by and generously asked me if there was anything I'd change. :omg: How would you turn this into a win? Subversively talk to staff, build a plan in secret and slowly evolve the graphic artist's shotgun layout into the more appropriate design by pointing out flaws one at a time? Is it worth the effort? Just wire it up like the owner wants and let the flaws become self-evident?
As some others have said... Also my 2c It seems to me that communication between you and your boss is the heart of the problem - he (quite reasonably) just wants something built but doesn't want to take the time or effort to think about it too much. You (quite reasonably) want to analyse the requirements and build something suitable. I tend to 'play dumb' in these cases. what you want is for the owner (or some member of staff) to show you what they need to do. So ask - find out who will be using it and ask if you can sit down with them to work out what to do. Admit to dealing in the unknown, and flatter them (they have superior knowledge - maybe they can pass on just a little to you, a mere mortal) Also, get agile! Mock up a first screen - you will probably have to do one like that that has been designed to not appear negative - and ask to sit with the boss, or users (preferably both) so that they can explain to you how it will work - because they are the experts. Then build, one step at a time, better and better models. It will be more work than would be the case if they could explain it to you up front - but they don't see that (and sounds like they won't!) If you can sit them down, with the app open, with a billion fields, and start working through it, hopefully you will both learn something for the better, and you can re-model. Knocking up a does-nothing but looks nice view shouldn't be too time consuming - and you can treat it as a scribble-on-paper diagram - something to start the ball rolling... Good luck!
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')