Ok, so about a year ago, a new 'Application Manager' was hired here, and I have to report to him (I used to report directly to VPIS). He�s been somewhat ok to deal with, but he is old-school. Always comparing whatever we want to do with other systems (�You know, it�s sort of like Foo on and MVS�.) He�s also a Microsoft whore. He even had the balls to tell me �You guys have done some pretty good stuff, considering you don�t really have any skills�. O_o
Fast forward to now. Basically, I work for a collection of companies. We do Property Management, development, and construction. Currently, only the Property Management company has a public site, but the construction types want to redesign the site to reflect the entire �umbrella� of companies. This came down from the president of Construction, which is cool, as the construction side makes most of the cash here, looks like a chance for us to shine. Soooo, I suggest that we go about this in the normal way, i.e. start with requirements gathering, appoint a business contact for the project, schedule some meetings, work up a wireframe and prototype, etc.
Well, no. The new boss wants my group to just �do a website, kind of a straw-man, to get an idea of the look and feel and navigation.� Ok, easy enough, although we really don�t know what the customer will want. We are given some print brochures and told to kind of �generate that kind of idea� on the website.
As alarm bells are now going off, I mention that it�s kind of hard to really develop an effective site with ZERO input from the client. �Don�t worry� boss man says, just give an idea so that the upper management can get a feeling of what we are going to do.
Grudgingly, I tell my guys to look over some other similar sites, provided by the client, as examples of what they like, and come up with a basic site layout. I tell bossman, but he wants us to �make a big first impression� so we need more on the site. Now, I am no marketing type, yet I realize that clients are not going to tell us what they want until we show it to them, but this is ridiculous. It�s hard enough to hit a moving target, but we can�t even SEE the target. Now the bossman has just left my cube after giving me his �ideas� for what the site should have. Nice. I see MANY rewrites in our future.
One last thing, this is a guy who chose a training provider (4 students, about $8000 worth of training) because, as he mentioned NUMEROUS times�.
Wait for it....
�They have a nice, clean website.�
Kill me now.
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