Hey there Dev world! My first post of 2019 woohoo! And while I would love to expound on my grand plans of the "New Year, New Me" variety, I don't have any such plans. So instead, I'd like to hear some of your stories about something that never changes: A client/customer/PM trying to "talk you down" on something that is flat-out non-negotiable, and how you handled it.
As some of you might remember in an old post of mine (located here if you want to check it out), I, along with many of you, have had the experience of clients trying to negotiate with me on things that ranged from bizarre to irresponsible or even illegal. Many of these occasions can be remedied by simply explaining your stance on things in a clear, calm, and concise way or clearing up a misconception that your client may simply not be aware of. But there are times when these requests can become so insistent that they border of aggressive or even abusive. Seeing as Dev has a large population of new or budding developers, I implore the more senior folks among us to give some examples of such times, how you addressed the situation and what the outcome was.
Top comments (3)
I once had a head of product who would assure deadlines to the rest of the C team without consulting the dev team, and when the dev team pushed back he would try to trick us into believing that the deadline was actually our idea, not his, and we were failing to deliver on what we promised.
Document all your discussions. Back them up on a non work account. Don’t let someone make you ale the fall for things you didn’t agree to.
I breathe a heavy sigh of indignance. I don't mean to discriminate but...did that product owner have a sales background? Because that sounds like some grade A, "play both sides off of each other to deflect from the fact that I'm the one in the wrong out of all three concerned parties", not-ivy-league, business school nonsense right there. I'd hate to imagine that particular product owner ended up in senior management eventually but...that product owner ended up in senior management eventually didn't they? 😄
He was actually a former javascript developer and was also the VP of product (and the only PM in the company). I don't know why he thought that management style was a good idea. Startup culture is weird and incentivizes bad behavior sometimes.