in reply to Lost in the Translation

My theory. You failed to explain the situation in terms of what he cares about, and he didn't work out that connection for himself.

Remember. If you tell him that it will take you a lot of work, and won't ever work right, he will say, "Just another worker-bee moaning - when will they learn that they are being paid because it isn't supposed to be fun?" (But will be too polite to come out and say that to your face.) You are likely to get farther if you can honestly say, "This change will push out the deadline by at least 2 weeks, and the UI complexity will cause users to get frustrated at us." This he cares about. He may not believe your assessment, but he cares about the consequences described.

So add to your questions whether you made the problem description relevant to him, not you.

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Re: Re: Lost in the Translation
by gawatkins (Monsignor) on Apr 30, 2003 at 17:56 UTC

    In Particular, you have to explain everything in terms dollars and cents (or your local from of currency). Management only seem to unsderstand what shows up on their budget

    Thanks,


    Greg

[reply]
      You seem to have a dim view of management. Granted, there are a lot of bad managers out there. But there are also a lot of techies out there who are very hard to manage, because they can't see the bigger picture, and have limited, naive thoughts about any non tech issue.

      Abigail

[reply]

        I will have to agree with you on that-but I still have hope. Fortunately I have had some very good managers, but unfortunately, those good managers make the mediocre ones seem really bad.

        Thanks

        Greg

[reply]
      To go a step further. There are probably no terms he really cares about. Like many he is probably just a monkey trying to keep the machine happy by meeting the deadlines other people have pushed on him. Hmm, now that's a bit cynical, but then again I live in the movie "Office Space".

      smiles

[reply]
      Actually, it's a dim view of humans, not managers. I don't believe I singled out managers at all in my post. I find that most people don't care to learn anything unless you put a gun to their head. Especially learning how to talk or understand one another. (I'm no expert at this art.)

      I find that most managers shouldn't be....
      Tech people sometimes strike me the same way, but at least their job isn't to manage other people's jobs.

      Of late, the problem I've seen is not the tech's lack of awareness of things outside the tech world or the overall picture. Actually, they always strike me as quite powerless and frustrated. It's that the managers over them don't care about any problem but their own deadline/goal/objective/whatever (strikes me as a big corporation problem). What good is a deadline if it guarantees failure?

      Granted, I currently speak as an observer, but I have had my share of good and mostly bad managers. I haven't had much in the way of managers or deadlines over the last 2 years, yet my clients have enjoyed the benefits of my work.

      smiles

      PS. A warning to Mr. Muskrat: Be careful what you do and don't put into writing and make sure and never document promises you cannot fulfill. ie. don't be a day late on something you promised in writing for tomorrow.

[reply]

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