Gerald M. Weinberg (Secrets of Consulting, The Psychology of Computer Programmin, Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing) shares a crazy-enough-to-be-true anecdote from one of his consulting engagements:
The customers were enraged with the IT manager because a new system wasn’t ready on time, and the IT manager was enraged with the customers because they hadn’t delivered some essential information as promised, thus causing the entire project to lag its schedule by four months.It was over 100 degrees outside, but even hotter inside — emotionally. Jeff, the IT manager, would smack the table and say, “You promised that the component pricing data would be in our hands by February first.”
Penny, the catalog manager, would give him a steely-eyed glare and mutter, “We never promised that. Never!”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, we didn’t.”
And then they would loop back to the beginning, raising the temperature a few degrees.
I thought that the problem-solving would go better if I could cool things down, but all I was hearing was “yes-you-did-no-we-didn’t,” back and forth. I decided to attempt to establish some facts that were not a matter of opinion, so I asked for the original requirements document. Both Penny and Jeff seemed a bit stunned by this reference to data, then Penny recovered and said, “Yes, that will prove my point.”
“No, it will prove my point,” Jeff countered. “Good idea, Jerry. Now we’ll see whose fault this is.”
I was a bit surprised at how readily they each found the document. (Lots of my clients seem to lose requirements documents once a project is under way.) Jeff got his open first, and placed his index finger on the following key line:
The Catalog Department should deliver component pricing data by 1 February to the IT Department.
I thought Penny would find some other statement to “prove” her point, but a few moments later, she had her copy open to the same page, upon which the same sentence was highlighted in DayGlo pink. “There.” She said, triumphantly. “There’s my proof. We never promised to deliver that data that early.”
“Yes you did. It’s perfectly clear, right there. Should deliver by 1 February.”
“Exactly,” Penny countered. “It doesn’t say we will, but only that we should. And we did try. But you computer people apparently don’t appreciate the difficulty of getting every single one of those prices signed off by every person involved.”
Weinberg considers should an example of lullaby language, designed to discourage feedback by putting both the speaker’s and the listener’s minds to sleep.