== Client/Boss Requirements War Stories ==

Presenter:  [You http://pdx.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?PortlandPerlMongerMembers]

How do you cope with changing requirements and unrealistic schedules?  What (social and technical) techniques provide an abstraction layer that business decision-makers use to drive a project?  What is the /right/ amount of information-hiding?

As [Morlocks http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html], we are extremely valuable to the Eloi to the extent that we solve the /right/ problem on the /right/ schedule.  Sometimes, this means defining the problem; sometimes the schedule.  Users often do not know what they want or may have trouble expressing it.  This discussion is about the translation process, the grief that it causes, and how to make it more enjoyable for both sides.

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This was a lively round-table discussion with the majority of the attendees contributing some anecdote or insight.

The meeting began with Josh asking for a volunteer to take over leadership of the group.  The response was not so lively.

Oh, and we started with "They're made of Meat."

Highlights:

* telling-off the construction manager
* seamless wireless on a shoestring budget
* you will eventually lose your monkey
* "You have the source code?  We don't even have the code!"
* "It's simple.  It's elegant.  It's wrong."
* "Good programmers don't make mistakes."
* sometimes the technically inferior product solves the business problem
* don't answer the 4 month problem in 4 minutes
* defcon III, IV, V
* give me the source or I show you the door

There was no podcast of this meeting.