{"id":158,"date":"2023-04-12T18:36:27","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T18:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/?p=158"},"modified":"2023-04-12T18:36:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T18:36:27","slug":"beware-the-monkeys-paw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/2023\/04\/12\/beware-the-monkeys-paw\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware the monkey&#8217;s paw!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Congratulations!  It&#8217;s date-night with your significant other, you have a bit of expendable money, and you decide to treat yourselves to a great dinner.  You walk intoday a fancy restaurant, get seated and tell the waiter &#8220;Tonight, money is no object.  I don&#8217;t even want to see the menu.  Just make it amazing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re thinking &#8220;tonight couldn&#8217;t get better&#8221;&#8230; until your food arrives.  Now (depending on where you are in the world, your culture, and your risk tolerance), you&#8217;ll need to stick with me here.  But it&#8217;s not at all what you expected.  For me &#8211; boring \/ western culture &#8211; the food is snake.  Or something with a face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You call the chef over and say &#8220;I ordered something amazing&#8230; you&#8217;ve got this totally wrong&#8221;.  And he answers:  &#8220;You&#8217;re kidding me, right?  Did you see how I prepared this?  It&#8217;s totally amazing!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who is in the wrong here?  Answer:  Neither of you&#8230; This is just about aligned expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong>Software delivery is a lot like this.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"541\" src=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Moneksy-paw.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-159\" srcset=\"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Moneksy-paw.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Moneksy-paw-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Moneksy-paw-768x415.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>W.W. Jacobs wrote a great story about this.  Hugely abbreviated:  A man comes into possession of a monkey&#8217;s paw, which will grant him a wish.  He wishes for a sum of money (\u00a0\u00a3200).  The next day, there is a knock on the door.  His son has been tragically killed in an accident in the factory where he worked.  The factory offers compensation for his death &#8211; \u00a0\u00a3200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Takeaway:  You often get what you ask for, but not in the way that you expected it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s the solution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This depends on the level of ambiguity in the discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>If you&#8217;re negotiating with a doctor on an operation, it&#8217;s likely that there is not huge ambiguity.  (&#8220;Cut my mole out&#8221; can&#8217;t be intepreted in a huge number of ways&#8230; although you should take care!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Make me an amazing meal&#8221; could be open to interpretation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Create a report with seven columns of data&#8221; should be pretty clear cut.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8221; Build me an application that manages people applying for a mortgage&#8221; can be very, very open to interpretation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The best approach for everything is to test alignment of expectations early, often, constantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>I recommend asking your doctor to circle the mole he\/she is going to remove with a pen; or being awake.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Asking the chef what &#8220;amazing&#8221; looks like seems pretty reasonable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the absence of a detailed specification, checking in with the developer after a few hours of development seems prudent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Creating a storyboard; co-development; playback sessions for a complex application seems mandatory, to me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And a gentle reminder &#8211; for anything in life &#8211; the earlier mistakes are identified and rectified &#8211; the cheaper the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A final thought.  Again &#8211; depending on your culture \/ level of assertiveness \/ attention to detail &#8211; we often tend to try to avoid confrontation. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ll get this right&#8230;&#8221;  It&#8217;s 100% fine to (politely) say &#8220;I just want to make sure I&#8217;m not wasting your time \/ pushing a can down the road.  I might not have fully articulated my expectations.  Can you replay to me what you understand I want, so that we avoid an argument later?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you align expectations, and test constantly, maybe you too can avoid the moneky&#8217;s paw!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to avoid getting what you want, just not in the way you wanted it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,25,30],"tags":[36,33,29,26,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leverage.mobi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}