Re: Professionalism can be bad

I'm afraid I have to disagree on one point: "You must be the client's idea of professional. This may or may not be the same as your own." In my view you should always maintain your own standards of professionalism. If the customer tells you 'This is how we do things', then fine. But tell them what damage their bad practices could do them once and once only, and don't get yourself into bad habits that could turn around and bite you on the next contract.

Perhaps temper your working practices temporarily whilst still trying to gently lead the customer towards good practice.

Professionalism doesn't have to make you look pompous - if you explain why you adhere to certain standards, and explain what can go wrong if you don't, then you look like what you are - a skilled outsider with valuable experience to share.

g0n, backpropagated monk

Comment on Re: Professionalism can be bad

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Re^2: Professionalism can be bad by Whitehawke (Pilgrim) on Mar 13, 2005 at 03:56 UTC
I agree. I would not compromise my own integrity--personal or professional--to make a client happy. That said, I'm not sure it's an either/or proposition. I think I can remain professional but just present it in a way that is more comfortable to them...which, really, is part of being professional. As an example...when I got there, we had a big meeting with me, K, and all the dev/tech people. K asked "is there any way that we can improve the accuracy of our estimates and/or development processes?" No one responded for several very long seconds so I put my hand up and started talking about Agile Development. No one in the room had heard of it except one guy, their prime developer. He apparently has a mad-on about the idea, because he shut me down instantly. I said "ok" and shut up. Then I started tracking my project in iterations, talking about velocity and user stories, etc. Other people are starting to pick up the language and adopt the concepts--and all without making anyone uncomfortable.	[reply]

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Re^2: Professionalism can be bad
by Whitehawke (Pilgrim) on Mar 13, 2005 at 03:56 UTC

I agree. I would not compromise my own integrity--personal or professional--to make a client happy. That said, I'm not sure it's an either/or proposition. I think I can remain professional but just present it in a way that is more comfortable to them...which, really, is part of being professional.

As an example...when I got there, we had a big meeting with me, K, and all the dev/tech people. K asked "is there any way that we can improve the accuracy of our estimates and/or development processes?" No one responded for several very long seconds so I put my hand up and started talking about Agile Development.

No one in the room had heard of it except one guy, their prime developer. He apparently has a mad-on about the idea, because he shut me down instantly.

I said "ok" and shut up. Then I started tracking my project in iterations, talking about velocity and user stories, etc. Other people are starting to pick up the language and adopt the concepts--and all without making anyone uncomfortable.

[reply]