Originally published at: http://www.sitepoint.com/art-saying/
The Art of Saying “No”
Programming for one’s self can be fun and fulfilling. You get to dream up challenging tasks to impress friends and peers. You get to show flashy boxes on the screen to prove to yourself how good you are at programming. Scratching your own itch will feel good, but it can be no more than an exercise in satisfying one’s own ego.
In this article, I’d like to explore programming for others. When other human beings get involved in the creative process, your skills take on a radically new dimension. Working with clients is challenging because they don’t care how you solve their problem. What you call a “solution” can be considered “buggy.” What you consider “useful” can be received as “hard to use” or “too convoluted.”
Programming for others demands removing one’s self from the equation. Dealing with nonsense from clients while delivering a sound solution is challenging. But, it can be incredibly fulfilling if you know when and to why to say no. I would like to explore how to effectively work with clients in the art of saying “no”.
The client is not always right
Clients come in all shapes and sizes, from versed in tech to software illiterate. But, regardless of the people you work for, they chose to come to you with a problem.
This means it’s your job to solve the problem, not theirs.
I once had a client tell me they used to write web sites in HTML. It felt like the mindset of that once proverbial twelve year old who wrote web sites in MySpace.
My client had always felt confident in their programming skills, and had become used to giving my team implementation-specific details. This caused the legacy system to have many disastrous usability issues: Terrible color palettes, unintelligible navigations, and frustrated customers.
To try and address this issue, I asked if the client could provide mockups in HTML. It wasn’t long before they realized that coming up with mockups is hard. As a result, I earned more freedom in delivering the best solution I could come up with.
It’s good to have clients with strong opinions — as long as you’re not getting micro-managed. But it’s more important to give yourself a broad canvas on which to imagine the best possible solution.
When a project fails to deliver, you’ll be the person cleaning up the mess. Your clients are relying on you for a reason and it’s your job to do what’s best for them.
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