We are not supposed to work on a problem for this project; its all about implementing this solution.
All too often you walk into a meeting room and people are already offering solutions. You have the gentleman on the left; he brought a hacked PowerPoint with pasted up screen shots of competitor sites. What about the lady on the right? She’s showing everyone on the whiteboard how the web application should look. Then it hits you. What’s the problem we are trying to fix?
I actually heard someone say in a meeting:
“We are not supposed to work on a problem for this project; its all about implementing this solution.”
It’s funny now, but not when you are in the midst of advocating for the user, quality becomes vapor.
So why does quality become vapor? In the corporate world, the saying “something is better than nothing” is commonplace. Anyone that has actually observed a usability tests can attest to the fact that many times, “something” can be worse than nothing. The potential for bad usability is rarely seriously considered an opportunity cost for the enterprise.
“Something is better than nothing” is the result of lack of time. I’ve often heard a joke saying, “you can have quality, time or budget, just pick any two.” Most projects are needed yesterday and they are often in competition for dollars.
Can we bring quality back into the mix? Focus on the problem. If the problem is clearly identified, you can’t finish the project without delivering the right solution which has a greater chance of achieving quality.
