IT is in my job, but my job isn't IT.

Post #319,929 by pwhysall 1/12/10 2:14:17 PM Reply	IT is in my job, but my job isn't IT. If I had to boil my job down to a single sentence, it'd be "managing the customer's expectations".
Post #319,930 by drook 1/12/10 2:23:41 PM Reply	Ah, like customer service at Verizon -- Drew
Post #319,935 by boxley 1/12/10 3:03:45 PM Reply	s/managing/lowering/g :-)
Post #319,937 by drook 1/12/10 3:27:59 PM Reply	Isn't that always what it means? Not being sarcastic this time. No one ever talks about "managing expectations" unless they mean that they're trying to lower expectations to fit under the expected reality. -- Drew
Post #319,943 by static 1/12/10 5:12:47 PM Reply	IME, that is usually so. A lot of the time it is a conversation between what is desired and what is possible. Sometimes, what is requested is idiotically easy and what can be delivered is much greater. More usually, the customer simply needs their expectations to actually be grounded in reality. That's what "managing expectations" involves. Then it's a conversation between people who think they know what they want and people who have to make something happen. One sales guy I sometimes work with has been known to say that he doesn't remember how the database is structured because we know and can just tell him when he asks. :-/ Wade. Q:Is it proper to eat cheeseburgers with your fingers? A:No, the fingers should be eaten separately.
Post #319,952 by pwhysall 1/12/10 9:49:03 PM 1/12/10 9:49:56 PM Reply	Not really We have a very close relationship with our customer; the product (a rather intricate highway management system) is complex and continually changing due to a rolling programme of upgrades and fault responses. The relationship is twofold - we talk to their technology people, but we also have a relationship with the operational staff. This being a government agency, left and right hands don't always communicate as well as they might, so we sometimes act as an intermediary. Operational issues trump all; the expectations being managed are sometimes those of the technology side, with them being told by us that the operations people want feature X or have problem Y, so roadmap feature Z will either have to wait or will cost more or will require a modification. Edited by pwhysall Jan. 12, 2010, 09:49:56 PM EST Expand All History
Post #319,945 by beepster 1/12/10 5:29:47 PM Reply	This sounds like something from "Office Space" "I deal with the damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills". Or something like that... I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose freewill.

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