On Jan 7, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Robert Hoekman, Jr. wrote: > Engineering departments are not often set up to listen. They're set > up to > build, build, build. This disconnect is where the problem starts, I > think.
In our research, a lot of it plays into the organizational structure. Often the management tree of the organization where engineering (information sink) joins up with customer support (information source) is at a senior executive level, sometimes even the CEO. It's not the job of those executives to communicate what the two groups are doing. Why should engineering invest more money to produce a better product if only support sees the cost reduction benefit? We've found the best organizations put fiscal rewards and bonuses into the support/engineering communication path. For example, for many years, select teams at (believe it or not) Microsoft had a bonus for the developers/engineers who kept support minimized for their products. In essence, money saved from reduced support costs was put into bonuses for the design & development team. If you want to fix the problem, follow the money. Jared Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
