Re: How to find the greatest of two numbers without using the comparison operators?

<docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
The situation, in short, has evolved into 'Don't do what I told you, do
what I'm telling you'... and changes mean that historical data are
rendered invalid ('Oh, you don't count an office under (condition), didn't
we tell you that?') and have to be re-generated. Time, of course, is
money... and since no limits have been defined (or specified) the amount
of time spent on the project can never be called 'enough'.

Nothing gets accomplished... all that gets done is an eternal re-visiting
of yesterday's work because 'it's not what I see that I want and need
NOW'.

My guess is, most of those who have been in the software business for
a while have seen this kind of thing. Sometimes you can circumvent the
problem if you know enough about the situation and actual requirements
to think ahead of the users. I've had several clients comment to me, after
I delivered their new system, something like "You took what I asked you
for and made it better." Since I started my own company in 1980, I have
only contacted potential new clients twice, both at the urging of others,
and both successfully. Except for that, all my business has been from
word of mouth recommendations, from clients or friends of clients, so
I am simply not accustomed to unhappy clients. But you can't always
manage it, particularly if the client is afraid to make decisions.

In the 1980s I wrote a system for the local county Health Department,
for their environmental division. For may years the head of that
division had been one of those people who only tolerated "yes men"
working for him. The people in the department were afraid to make
decisions. He had recently retired when I was contracted to write this
system. I went through the steps, interviewed all the users who would
be involved, wrote up specs, created mock screen and report layouts,
all of which were duly signed off by the respective users. I wrote the
system, and the documentation, and we scheduled a time for the system
to be presented to the users so they could begin using it. During the
meeting, the users kept bringing up changes or additional features, to
the point that it required a virtual rewrite of the system. The Health
Department had been a good long time client, so I bit the bullet and
rewrote the system. When this system was presented as before, the
exact same thing happened. By this time I was getting annoyed, but I
again practically rewrote the system and the documentation. By this
time, I had written this system three times, and had used up all the
money in the contract, but I didn't say anything, and kept on working.
As the time drew near for the presentation, I could smell another trash
and burn session coming up, so I went to the MIS director, who went
to the comptroller, who went to the director, who called a meeting with
all of us. The environmental department had the gall to complain that,
not only was I taking too long, not giving them what they wanted, but
had gone "over budget" in the process. At this point, I was thinking
about a contract hit on these people. But when I explained to the
director, who knew me fairly well, that I had gone to every user,
designed a system to meet every request they had, taken the detailed
designs to them for signoff, and done it three times, had kept working
at my own expense after the money ran out, not billing one penny over
the original estimate, and slid the previous two sets of detailed designs
across the table to her, showing all the marked changes, she went
ballistic on the environmental people. They were given *one* chance
to request any needed changes from the now third iteration of the
design, and she extended my contract to pay for all the hours I had not
been paid for, and any needed money for the changes they might request.
Even though I was vindicated, and paid for all my work, it is not good to
have strained relations with your clients. Had I not had the documented
proof, or if there hadn't been more responsible upper management, or if
the director had not known that I was a reliable contractor, it could have
gone very badly. I'm not sure there was anything I could have done to
avoid that problem, other than declining the contract.
--
Judson McClendon judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


.

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