« ServletTestHelper for the Time Poor | Main | Reducto Ad Absurdum »
October 18, 2004
Death by Honesty?
Every now and again, I hear stories about my fellow IT consultants suffering badly on projects as a result of merely "being honest". Some of the stories end in the people being forced off the project as a direct result of their honesty!
My initial reactions to this stories are part shock, part dismay. After all, what could possibly be wrong with being honest? IT consultancy as an industry has been tarred far too often by various practitioners acting in a less than honest manner, so it seems absurd to punish those members that are naturally honest, doesn't it?
Digging deeper in most of these cases reveals a slightly more subtle definition of "honesty" is usually at the root of the victim's woes. I dare say most of these issues are caused by someone voiceing their honest opinion, rather than a pure fact. The difference between these two is clear to most of us, but obviously a little slippery for some to grasp.
"What's wrong with even trading honest opinion?", I hear you ask? Well, my take on this is that in the consulting world, we walk a very fine line between being open and "honest" in our dealings with the customer on one hand, whilst at the same time being cogniscent of what information can/should be kept within the team.
For example, slippage against estimates is something that the customer should definitely know about, so by all means be honest with them ASAP with these matters. It might sting a little, but it's far better they find out sooner rather than later.
Conversely, disputes between members of the technical team are probably not something you would want/need to escalate unless the problems are affecting the performance of the team. I don't believe we are doing the customer any injustice by not telling them that the team is in two minds over some aspect of the project architecture. Furthermore, this sort of news might spook an already jittery customer, whereas the development team just sees it as par for the course with typically prima donna-esque developers.
Are we, as consultants, being duplicituous by not revealing these sort of issues to our customers? Some may say so (usually under the banner of "honesty trumps everything"), but I'd counter by saying that conscientous filtering of information is part of our responsibility as professionals. It is as unprofessional for us to use honesty as a lever for airing all our woes as it is for us to use the "few quiet drinks" we may have had on Sunday night as an excuse for breaking the build on Monday morning. I think being able to separate the items into the appropriate bucket is one of the things that makes a competent consultant.
As with all such issues of this nature, these grey areas are prone to abuse in the wrong hands.
The other thing about an honest opinion is that it may very well not be based on a wholistic view of the issues. An incomplete picture of things combined with an "urge to purge" has probably been the cause of many of the "death by honesty" stories I heard through collegues.
All this is just IMHO of course :-)
Posted by Andy Marks at October 18, 2004 04:13 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)