IT vs Marketing!!! Fight of the cetury!!! 1

[Georgi1chuikov]

I have a marketing department that makes stupid impossible demands and dealines, will sign of on the undertested piece of software without even looking at it, and then blame IT for any mistakes that come up even though IT signed off on it under the reservation that it has not been tested enough. This is typical for this relationship in every company I worked for, I wanted to hear other peoples stories/problems with this sort of adversarial relationship that often occurrs between these 2 departments. feel free to rant away!!!

 

[SQLSister]

Well don;t feel alone in that one! One of the fun things our marketing people do is come up with new requirements at the last minute or after a show starts wanting them done immediately and then upset if we can;t have the change up in an hour or less or if it causes some other problem (which by being a last minute cobble together, it usually does)

Another fun thing is if they talk to two potential customers who want the software to work in two mutually exclusive ways, they will come back and tell us to fix it to do both things.

Oh yeah, and customers shouldn;t have to put correct info into searches, it should find the records the customer wants no matter how badly they misspell something, but it shouldn't return other obviously wrong records. Will someone please tell me how to program to read the customer's mind? IF I can figure that one out, I'll be rich.

 

[Georgi1chuikov]

also, customers are should not be required to put in valid information to get a reponce. Customers should also not have to actually read the error that is generated from the garbage they input.

 

[jrbarnett]

One I have come up with:
I was rewriting an old DOS system which was fixed in the way it worked. The new Windows version was far more flexible and as a result, like most things in Windows, the same things are available from multiple ways.
I gave him training and showed him one way of doing a particular task, and that was OK, then showed him it was possible to do it another way if approaching from a different screen, and he asked why?

John

 

[edfair]

It is an unfortunate result of the mutually exclusive desires of the departments.
The "Dilbert" books cover it pretty well.

 

[carrr]

Agreed, Ed.
Marketing doesn't know IT as IT doesn't know Marketing.
There's probably a thread running in a Marketing-Tips forum, out there somewhere, p and m'ing about having to deal with IT folks, swapping amusing anecdotes and such.

 

[lespaul]

Now why would they do that, those of us in IT are logical, efficient and productive, what in the world could anyone complain about logical efficient productive workers?

[ROFL]

Leslie

 

[jrbarnett]

I think it generally boils down to the fact that compenent people who work in IT are able to do things that others would consider magic (for want of a better word) and so those who don't know about the technical side of things, such as the marketing department, assume anything is possible.
Just my £0.02 (I am in the UK so don't use cents).

John

 

[edfair]

Leslie,
I would agree that more of us in IT are logical. That does not neccessarily result in efficient or productive.
When I found that there was a need for logical people I must have felt like Brer' Rabbit when he was thrown into the briar patch.

If you can find a description of ISTPs (Meyers-Briggs type) and look for those with high Ts you'll find that they can be the most unproductive.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[Tarwn]

I find that as long as I act like the class "engineer type" (not my slur) I can pretty much ignore requests for further functionality. The other great solution is to instantly start listing every little thing that would have to change, from the miniscule to the major.

One of the ones I love to hate is the ever-present, "I know I asked yesterday, but when is it going to be done?". My general answer to this is "We announced the deadline of --/--/---- back in the meeting 6 months ago, it hand't changed last week when you asked, it hadn't changed yesterday when you asked, it still hasn't changed today, and I bet if you ask tomorrow it will still be the same."

Needless to say I am known as a real --- now because of answers like that and the fact that I have a bad habit of copying old emails when people ask me the same stupid question more than once or twice. It's amazing how annoyed people get when you reply to the question, but include the email where they asked it a month ago...with highlighting...

-T

[sub]01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111[/sub]
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[kiddpete]

It's simple. I just turn ESP=ON

 

[chiph]

Or get the RUM system upgrade (Read Users Mind).

If the upgrade doesn't work, try the one that comes in 750ml bottles.
;-)

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[SQLSister]

ESP = ON, so simple. Is that a T-SQL cpmmand or do I run it in the .Net interface? Do I need to install the RUM upgrade to the system for it to work? Which Windows patch is that in?

 

[CajunCenturion]

Don't worry SQLSister, My IT guys will provide a user interface to shield you from all those details by 10 o'clock Monday morning.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[lullysing]

i've gotten myself a book to help myself deal with such a beast :"The career Programmer:guerilla tactics for an imperfect world" by Christophen Duncan.

The book deals exactly with all those things, including scope creep and other things to make the IT boys cry like little children deep in the night as they have had another of their rarissim dates being crushed by the marketing exec with the big mouth and a willingness to do anything to get the sale and now ( bla bla bla bla bla bla bla imagine the rest).

In short, it's the book for you. Already in chapter 2, and even if the book was intended for programmers, i am reading it religiously like a muslim would read the koran.

Chapter 4 and already i'm a convert. There was a review on slashdot too.



_____________________________
when someone asks for your username and password, and much *clickely clickely* is happening in the background, know enough that you should be worried.

 

[jsteph]

I think it's all because many companies see themselves as strictly "Sales and Marketing". IT, Manufacturing, etc--those are all commodities. They can, and often are, outsourced.

The Company's "Job 1" is not the product, the quality, etc,--but Sales and Marketing. Period. If Marketing says it has to be ready tomorrow--then that takes precedence over anything else. Those other things--like the actual product and it's quality--are secondary.

Take WalMart, for example. A shirt is a shirt as far as they're concerned. If Supplier A is delivering 5000 shirts a week, then in a moments notice Walmart wants them to deliver 50,000 by the next day--it's Supplier A's fault if they can't do it. Regardless of the fact that it's next to impossible to have a company geared to make 5000 shirts a week all of a sudden come up with 10 times that much in a day.

Many companies as we too painfully know--Walmart a good example--somehow survive on that mentality.
--jsteph

 

[clarkin]

That book on amazon (

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590590082/104-8753195-4695940?v=glance):

Customers who bought this book also bought:

* ..
* ..
* Software Development on a Leash (Paperback)

Mixing S&M with Programming?

Posting code? Wrap it with code tags: [ignore]

[/ignore][code]CodeHere

[ignore][/code][/ignore].

 

[lullysing]

ooo....kkkkk.......
*shuffles away from clarkin*
...
*breaks down and ROTGLMAO*


_____________________________
when someone asks for your username and password, and much *clickely clickely* is happening in the background, know enough that you should be worried.

 

[Georgi1chuikov]

How many IT people out their are EXPECTED to do their jobs by getting the client drunk and letting him win at golf while on company time? Zero percent hopefully. Ask the average marketing person and the amount may surprise you.

 

[infinitelo]

Ok this is a great thread, maybe we could come up with
a formula that cpa's, marketing, mba's, and IT could agree
with.

perfect_product_release_date = {[desire*(price/cost) + motivation - talent/tools*(sleepless_overtime)] * [bugfixes + late_requirements_issued + oops]} * testing_days

*remove varibles at the detriment of perfect_product.




if it is to be it's up to me