As a consultant myself, I am often faced with clients who have
jumped to a solution which is technically unworkable. In the
entry-contracting phase of establishing rapport, it is useful to elaborate
on the likely outcomes of pursuing several alternative courses of action.
One outcome which I would discuss is the likely outcome of pursuing the
clients "solution."
However, once informed, I treat the client as a collaborator,
whose ideas are as valid as mine. This is an issue of respect and ethics
for me. Just as I would question my own ideas and refine them, together,
we question the clients ideas and explore implications.
> Customer Not Always Right LO2171
>
> BClemson@aol.com
> Thu, 20 Jul 1995 19:20:13 -0400
>
> Alex Pattakos argued that the customer is not always right (sorry I
> have
> lost the LO #). I would like to tell a story.
>
> I was working for a consulting firm with about 60 professionals. One
> of
> our divisions got a contract to develop the requirements for a
> software
> system for a large government agency. This contract specified that we
> would do an analysis that involved TEN levels of data flow diagrams.
> What
> this means is that you start with a model of the system that fits on
> one
> piece of paper (first level). The second level takes each element from
> the
> first level and blows it out to, on average, seven elements. Each
> succeeeding level adds detail. On average, it is expected that each
> level
> will have seven elements for each element on the level above it. This
> means that the tenth level will have about 7 raised to the ninth power
> elements = 40 million!.
>
> I suggested that there was no possibility of producing data flow
> diagrams
> with 40 million elements. I ws told that this was what the client
> wanted
> and therefore that was what we would do.
>
> We of course failed to deliver (in my opinion it wsn't een remotely
> possible), the client got mad, and we missed out on all the followup
> business that should have been oours if we had done the first part
> right.
>
> IMHO, this was incompetent and unethical of us -- we had a
> responsibility
> to educate that client that what they wanted was unresonable. And if
> we
> failed to convince them, we should have refused the job.
>
> Moral: The client is not always right.
>
> Barry Clemson
> Center for Organizational Systems Engineering
> BClemson@aol.com
-- |__Roy_J._Winkler,_AAS,_BSM,_MSM______| |__Consultant:_OD/HRD/Group_Dynamics__| |__Anderson,_Indiana___USA____________| |__E-Mail:_rwinkler@iquest.net________|