| Topic Name: |
Dealing with difficult business end-user |
| Message Name: |
Difficult Customer |
| Date Posted: |
12/31/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
I am an IT engineer working at a financial institution. We are a group of 5 developers reporting to a manager. Typically, we write software solutions required by different lines-of-business within our company. In most projects, the business guys provide us with the requirements, we build the application, we go through a few testing cycles and the application is moved into production. That's our model.
Most of our business users are quite cooperative in providing us with requirements and in understanding timeframes taken to deliver a quality product. Of course, they want the solution right away :-), but they are happy with the stuff that we deliver.
Of late, we are running into a serious problem with a business user. He is under pressure from the business VP to roll out a critical application. He had tried to get a consulting company deliver this, but that did not work out. Now, he has come to our door for help.
However, his attitude is extremely brash. He wants the entire application (which the consulting company failed to deliver after 1 year) ready in 1 month!!! We understand his urgency, but we cannot dump other projects and work for him only. Even then, it will take us a good amount of time to write the application.
Our business user refuses to understand to logic. He throws tantrums. He goes behind our back and promises "demo"s to his boss. Because of this, we had to work for 20 hours on a Saturday and even then this "demo" was just a charade!
Now, this dude wants us to work through Christmas to get another "demo" working.
We are at our wits end in dealing with this guy. We have tried to rationalize with him. But he (worked in the military) does not like any dissent and he refuses to listen to us. Needless to say, our manager has been a wimp in dealing with this guy.
Is this fairly common where IT folks have to work for business end-users? Have you encountered similar situations?
How would you deal with this case?
Thanks..... |
| Message: |
Sometimes people are pushy because they're sure you have it in you to do it and they think you're just being lazy.
On the other hand, you mentioned you have other customers. I would not want to put all of them at risk to try and help one, because you may do him a good favor and still get burned in the end.
If you can't make a commitment, be honest about it and educate them why they are being unreasonable. It's not _really_ your job to save his ass, but at the same time you should not care so much how the job gets done as long as it gets done. Maybe you need to bring in some help.
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