One of My Favorite Sayings

I’m reading a book called “Essential Scrum” by Kenneth S. Rubin. Leaders and individual contributors at my current employer are using the text as our definitive guide to how we want to do agile software development.

I’m in chapter 5 today which is titled “Requirements and User Stories”. This should be an interesting read. Everyone I’ve ever worked with has “done agile” at one point or another, but we have such a wide range of preferences and biases. Reading this book is a bit of a challenge because I feel like I know how to “do agile” already. But, I’m curious if my understanding aligns with the book. I’m sure there is still more for me to learn.

I’ll likely send more postcards about my agile adventures. For now, I want to share one of my favorite sayings. There’s an example in this book related to the futility of trying to gather requirements upfront in the form of a mock conversation. It goes like this (from page 80):

Customer: “Now that I see these built features, I realize I need this other feature that isn’t in the requirements document.”
Developers: “If you wanted that feature, why didn’t you specify it up front?”
Customer: “Well, I didn’t realize I needed that feature until I saw the product coming together.”
Developers: “Well, if you had thought longer and harder about the requirements up front, you would have found that feature then instead of now.”

I had to chuckle at this mock exchange because this is a conversation that can happen in many industries, not just software development. In my web development days, we provided graphical mock ups and test URLs as we built out websites so our customers could experience the product and provide feedback before we did too much work. This led me to one of my top 10 most repeated sayings. I often say, “Customers don’t know what they want, but they know what they don’t like.”

It is just part of the human experience. We can discuss the kitchen remodel, the website design, the paint color for the nursery, etc. for days. But, it is not until you get to experience some part of the decision with more of your senses that you can confirm if you actually like it. And, once you have a chance to sense the outcome, you find inspiration (or be disappointed).

It is a wise practice to give people a chance to experience their decision before too much work is done.