Oh, That's Easy -- Part 1

"Oh, that's easy."

As a developer, I hate those words, particularly if they are coming from the Business Analyst, Team Lead, or, worse of all, the Project Manager. To be brutally honest, and when have I not been, most Project Managers are not familiar enough with the technology being used on a project to actually make that decision. Most, not all, but most project managers are more in tune with the business aspect of a project, but not the technical parts of the project.

A number of years ago on a large project I was brought into a meeting with the client and asked whether something or not could be done. My immediate response was "I'm not sure, but I think we can." This was immediately translated into "See, it's easy". Afterwards the project manager came up to me and asked me if I could have it done by the next meeting, in two weeks. When I told him I could have the estimate ready in two weeks he came back with "Oh no, you misunderstood, you're going to have the solution in place in two weeks."

Needless to say, no one was happy. The solution wasn't in place in two weeks, so the users were disappointed. The solution wasn't in place in two weeks so the Project Manager was angry. I didn't get the proper support from the Project Manager so I was quite disillusioned. (OK, I wasn't that disillusioned because I didn't expect anything else, but I didn't fill out the patent application either.)

The lesson I learned, and that I hope I have communicated, is that Project Managers should never give an estimate of the technological complexity of a request without first asking their team. It's a wonderful recipe for disaster if you do as no one is going to be happy, least of all the client.