May
12
I have a “Dispair Inc,” calendar. I love these things, they’re so funny, and actually inspirational in their own way. The sayings on their merchandise are SO TRUE it’s scary. Anyway, May’s theme is “Tradition”. It states - “Just because you’ve always done it that was doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.” - 
I love that quote, however, that’s a huge deal for programmers with vision. Granted there are countless people (not just programmers) that have no vision and continue doing things the same old way because it works. Ya gotta give them credit, what they’re doing works. Change takes effort (or seems to). It is usually quite difficult to get people to even see the possibility that it may have been the best way to do it years ago, but not any more. If I can even get a sliver of hope through their thick shell of tradition, I’m fairly certain that I can break through and get them to change.
Ahhh, but then what. Its MUCH easier to build a new process for someone than to build an improved process for someone. There’s more pressure to make it simpler, faster, cleaner. The entire time your client will be comparing the new system to the old one. You’ll get the “well, the other one could…” or “with the old one it was easier because…”.
This is where your professionalism come in and where you get to shine, if you indeed have the vision and abilities. Plan ahead. If you’re rewriting an application, you better know 100% of everything it does, because that one feature you didn’t know about, or leave out because its stupid, they’ll rely on. Trust me. If you are indeed rewriting an application, and you choose to leave out a feature because it is outdated, or the new way doesn’t need it, you better convey that to your client in some obvious way. Don’t let them come to you and say - “I used to be able to click here to sort it this way”. Have on screen ques directing them to how it operates now. Maybe default sort the list, maybe make a header clickable to change the sort order, create a sort wizard, I don’t know, but it better be apparent.
The main rule to remember is : If it doesn’t behave the way the client expect it to - it’s broken. Your application may be 100% bug free, but it’s still broken if the user tries to double click somewhere and nothing happens. Lets face it, some of it comes down to managing expectations, other times it is having your ducks in a row and making darn sure you did what you needed to do.
So when approaching a client that is stuck on Tradition, you better pull out your mojo and deliver, because if you hand over something they’re not expecting, isn’t faster, better, cleaner, or easier to use - you’ll be managing more than expectations.