Ya know, all of this is really good discussion, all the way back to the Meditation that started it all, but the one thing no one has talked about so far is what happens to the process on a smaller scale.

I work for a small company of 50 employees. I'm the sole Web developer and Perl programmer and the only "customers" I have to worry about at this point are the people I work with on a daily basis. I develop intranet applications to replace the largely antiquated ones that have been around since 1988 (written in some God awful DOS based language that no one has ever heard of).

I play the role of code slinger, program analyst, quality assurance specialist and net nanny, on any given day. For the most part, my co-workers don't even know what's possible, forget about what's needed or wanted. I find the only way to produce something that actually helps them is to sit down, sometimes for hours on end, and just talk and watch them perform tasks.

I ask questions. They ask questions. We talk about technology and our business process in pared down terms (on both sides) and only through this deliberate contact do I get a clear sense of what they want and need.

And this isn't a bad thing. It's just part of my job, and honestly it's far from the part I like least. I end up understanding the business side of my company much better and they end up understanding at least on some level exactly what the technology is about and can do for them. Maybe its a by product of a small company but to ask my peers to go off and write down what they want would send the wrong message. I'd rather involve them in the process even if it means throwing away some code that heads down a wrong alley.

$.02

In reply to Re: They don't specify because they don't know what they want by earthboundmisfit
in thread They don't specify because they don't know what they want by C-Keen

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