Re:Bruce Schneier wants you to make software better
by magicalhippo on Wednesday April 28, 2021 @04:48PM
(#26973999)
> spend some time talking to end users or business stakeholders
That's part of why I love my current job. I often have to do the whole project from figuring out requirements with customer, all the way to developing the solution.
I find getting close to the customers really helps me understand how to deliver a good solution, and is also very motivating in that I see my concrete suggestions making a real impact for the customer.
For example, not long ago a user asked for a new private feature. I knew that we had some customers that might be interested in it, or at least a variation of it. So I rang up a few users from those companies that I knew worked a lot on the module in question, chatted a bit with them about how their workflow was and what kind of data they had at which times etc.
I used this info to come up with a much better general solution for the original customer, which was very useful for several of our customers.
When sales is doing demos I frequently hear about jaws hitting floors and questions about "how soon can we be up and running?" before any price has been mentioned. It's the sum of those features that has that effect.
That's part of why I love my current job. I often have to do the whole project from figuring out requirements with customer, all the way to developing the solution.
I find getting close to the customers really helps me understand how to deliver a good solution, and is also very motivating in that I see my concrete suggestions making a real impact for the customer.
For example, not long ago a user asked for a new private feature. I knew that we had some customers that might be interested in it, or at least a variation of it. So I rang up a few users from those companies that I knew worked a lot on the module in question, chatted a bit with them about how their workflow was and what kind of data they had at which times etc.
I used this info to come up with a much better general solution for the original customer, which was very useful for several of our customers.
When sales is doing demos I frequently hear about jaws hitting floors and questions about "how soon can we be up and running?" before any price has been mentioned. It's the sum of those features that has that effect.