• Clbuttical (unregistered)

    So basically, as stated in the article, it's business as usual. Business thinks about what they need, and finds that what they have conforms to that need. Where's the WTF? The fact that they already have what they need?

  • Little Bobby Tables (unregistered)

    And indeed, there's the WTF, right there ...

    "everyone had homework: to report to the next team meeting with their own interpretations of what the new form should look like."

    Someone should be tasked with: here's the new form; here's the list of weaknesses and omissions; create a mockup with the weaknesses corrected and omissions added; bring it to review.

    Before that, there is another phase:

    Someone else should be tasked with: Build a master list of all those weaknesses and omissions, which is done by consulting all the stakeholders.

  • (nodebb)

    I think they made little progress because there weren't enough resources assigned to the job. Just a few more business analysts, project managers, and DevOps scrum masters, and they would have cracked it!!!!

  • Regret (unregistered)

    So the designs were rejected without specific feedback. How can you expect your team to get better if you won't say why their work was not good enough?

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    Want to bet that everyone was probably looking at the last version of the form that should have been deleted a long time ago?

  • (nodebb)

    For over 22 years, I have worked in a place where "This doesn't work for us!" is the general motto. Yet, whenever we have discussions on how to fix it, we are met with a resounding "Oh, we can't change how we do things."

    It was the same in all the places before. It's how "Business" does business!

  • DQ (unregistered) in reply to Regret

    They were rejected because they weren't Norman's version...

  • Appalled (unregistered)

    Design work should NEVER be done by Committee. A committee is incapable of getting ANYTHING completed. A Senior Analyst or Business Analyst should interview all the Stakeholders individually to gather requirements (and document in writing) and then design it by their self. If desired, a Requirements Acceptance meeting can be by committee to ensure the stakeholders didn't miss any thoughts and then Functional/Detail Design can commence . A final Detail Design Acceptance committee meeting can then be held where they can bicker all they want. But it shouldn't matter. A decent analyst will have designed a system that fulfills all the requirements in an efficient manner. Vanity changes (placement, color, edits, etc.) can be agreed upon at that time if inconsequential and do not violate the requirements. Another favorite tactic is to email a Detail Design to all parties disclosing everything. If there is no response within a business week, the design is accepted by default.

  • (nodebb)

    10 Identify requirements.

    20 Produce a mockup that meets the requirements

    30 Test the proposed design with actual users : REM This is where you save money

    40 IF the design passes, then GOTO 60

    50 GOTO 20

    60 Start coding : REM and go on from there

  • (nodebb) in reply to jkshapiro

    20 Produce a mockup that meets the requirements

    30 Test the proposed design with actual users : REM This is where you save money

    Make sure that the mockup contains at least some amount of easily-triggered fragility so that the actual users realise that it isn't finished yet.

  • eth0 (unregistered) in reply to Clbuttical

    I'd say the real WTF is the decision process that results in wasting hours of people's time designing a replacement for a form which, as it turns out, fits the business needs perfectly and doesn't need to be replaced at all.

  • (nodebb)

    Just build the form using WebKit and we'll add fields later using Python

  • not surprised (unregistered)

    TRWTF is assembling a committee to design the new form. After all, as the saying goes, a camel is just a horse that was designed by a committee.

  • Raj (unregistered) in reply to Mr. TA

    I don't see a Product Owner nor a User Advocate in your list. There's also no Enterprise Architect, no Business Relationship Manager and no representative of some form of ITSM non-steering committee.

    Those are key roles that should ALWAYS be present whenever a list of tedious meeting attendees is put together. Please amend your proposal and submit it to the Chair or Secretary at least 5 business days prior the next scheduled meeting, or provide a reasonable advance warning to the Secretary if you intend to bring up an unreviewed version of your proposal in the ad hoc period of the next meeting.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Raj

    Please accept my apologies. I'll include the people you listed, along with a couple of senior vice presidents for good measure.

  • Hasseman (unregistered)

    there is a Swedish saying "when the Devil wanted nothing more should happens in this world, he started the first committee"

  • sizer99 (google)

    Welcome to Enterprisey. It's all paid for by screwing our customers.

  • Gnasher729 (unregistered)

    I think they missed one tiny little point: Decide what they wanted to achieve. That’s the first thing you need to do, decide what you want to achieve, and then figure out how to achieve it.

    In this case: Figure out what the weaknesses and omissions are. And then, since nobody wanted a new form but the old one with the weaknesses and omissions fixed, you figure out how to do that.

  • Writer (unregistered)

    Hi Ellis,

    Can you remove the last paragraph starting from "Hours upon hours..."? It adds nothing and kills the punch in the previous paragraph.

  • löchlein deluxe (unregistered)

    Well of course you don't get anywhere without a Customer Delight Solutioneer.

  • Just another Embedded Designer (unregistered)

    Where is the User Satisfaction Survey pop up

  • Little Bobby Tables (unregistered) in reply to eth0

    I would suggest that there most definitely is room for improvement on their form, but the various proposed solutions by the numerous semi-competents at the meeting are inferior to the current form. Hence the latter emerges as "the best of a bad lot" and so the cloth-brained decision to keep it as it is, because no one person has managed (on his or her own) to magically develop a new improved version by meeting scribbles and guesswork.

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    reminds me of an earlier story where someone boasted that HIS form was better, because it contained extra information NO ONE EVER WANTED! and idiot management accepted that...

  • OP (unregistered) in reply to Writer

    As the original submitter, I'm more than a little put off by the "editoral work" done to my story, which was unnecessary and weakened it overall. :(

  • Writer (unregistered) in reply to OP

    So why don't you post your original version here!

  • (nodebb) in reply to Just another Embedded Designer

    Where is the User Satisfaction Survey pop up

    AAAAAARRRRRGH! I hate those damn popups! They always drive my satisfaction with a UI straight into the gutter. Or directly to cesspit levels if there's other intrusiveness about.

  • FristName LastName (unregistered)

    I don't see a WTF here. They start out agreeing that the existing form is terrible, they work out what needs to be changed, and by the end of the process they end up with a form that meets their needs perfectly.

    Oh, wait . . . .

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