Should the Word "Just" Be Banned in Client Communications?!
"I just want you to add another field to the form". "We just need to make sure it works in IE5". "I just need it to work with MySQL as well as Oracle". "We just need to see what admin user made what changes". "We just need people to be able to buy stuff online". "It just needs to integrate with Quickbooks" . . .
How many times have you found your blood boiling as a client makes what to them seems an innocuous request - often towards the end of a long and difficult project? Perhaps they want to change the db engine or the object model the day before launch. Maybe you've just created a sophisticated JS based site and they mention at the end that they do indeed need it to work in IE5 despite previous assurances that IE6+ would be fine.
What is interesting to me is that if you remove the word "just" from any of the above sentences, they are much less annoying. If a client tells you "I need it to work in IE5", you can explain that it's possible, but you'd have to change the entire front end, cut back on the AJAX, double the budget and add two more months to the project. They may say yes or no, but they asked for something and you can explain the implications and make a recommendation. However, when they add the word "just", they are taking the same request and framing it as technically being no big deal to do - an estimation they're usually not capable of making.
Just an observation. Anyone else notice this one? I'll usually just repeat the question back to them without the "just" and pretend they never said the word. Any really good approaches for handling the "just . . ." requests from clients?!
Happy writing!
J
It has actually worked a charm... as you get stuff like this happen:
'Can't you just build... oh.. I guess it's not that simple. Hmnnn... well, we would really like a whole social network, how long would that take?'
Which is great.
Client eduction is fun ;)
@Ryan, We don't ever allow the word etc. We just replace it with a reasonable estimate of what etc means or remove it.
@Mark, I like it. That's pretty much the experience we have too as the clients start to get educated.
@Andy, I guess it depends how the word is used. I sometimes use should to describe use cases "an administrator should be able to xxx". Remove "just" from the phrase and it becomes "it should work". Then at least you can say "why? was it in the specs?!". For me, "just" is the worst.
@Josh, It's something I come close to saying sometimes when I'm passing a project off to someone, but I try pretty hard not to say it any more as I know how annoying it is from the other side.
"Can we set up counters to check transactions each month or whatever?"