When collaborating with others – especially when designers and programmers are part of the mix – watch out for these dirty four letter words:
- Need
- Must
- Can’t
- Easy
- Just
- Only
- Fast
They are especially dangerous when you string them together. How many times have you said or heard something like this:
“We really need it. If we don’t we can’t make the customer happy. Wouldn’t it be easy if we just did it like that? Can you try it real fast?”
Of course they aren’t always bad. Sometimes they can do some good. But seeing them too often should raise a red flag. They can really get you into trouble.
Related: Revealing hidden assumptions in estimation by Jamis Buck.
John S.
on 30 May 07‘Just’ is my least favorite word. Anytime someone uses it, they don’t mean ‘just’, they mean “just this and all of this too.”
It’s not four letters but I would add truly to the list. It’s a pointless word that signals to me that I should distrust everything else you’re saying. “We truly need this feature for the next version.” Uh, no.
JF
on 30 May 07John S: Truly is definitely another red flag.
Ryan Allen
on 30 May 07Additionally, other words that should raise a red flag are:
Possible Almost Under ElephantAre you going to be adding a feature to Basecamp to red-flag messages when people use these words? Truly that would only just take a easy bit of work?
Trent
on 30 May 07Did anyone notice that yesterday, 37svn had approx. 68,000 Feedburner readers.
Now today, there is nearly 71,000.
What gives? That’s a huge jump in readership in just one day.
Wolf
on 30 May 07Same thing on our project team, some words are practically forbidden (mainly the dutch version of just) :)
BradM
on 30 May 073 letter word I hated ‘but’ ... Example with a 4 letter word. “But can’t you … “
Joe Grossberg
on 30 May 07I think “want” is another.
Especially in the hands of people who think “I want” makes their request impervious to cost, time and resource constraints.
Benjamin Hirsch
on 30 May 07“need” is my least favorite. I hate when a client says ‘I need you to make a change’. It would make all the difference if they said ‘Could you please make a change’.
Yeah, I know I need to get over it but man ‘need’ drives me crazy.
Barry
on 30 May 07Would ASAP count?
Steve
on 30 May 07Those might be bad words in a request, but they’re pretty good in a response.
“Oh, you must really need that. I can’t believe we didn’t already think of it! Should be pretty easy to do. Just give me 10 minutes.” “Only 10 minutes? Thanks, that’s fast!“
Mark
on 30 May 07Actually, the one that has stood out to me in multiple positions, that is an immediate red flag, is anyone who says “Can’t we just….”
Especially when said in front of a client.
Matt Murdock
on 30 May 07My boss says that exact quote all the time.
Greg
on 30 May 07How about this: “Just focus on what you can do fast, and deliver only what the client needs.”
Let’s take commonly used words and make them scary and avoidable!
My point, aside from trolling, is that it’s less about the vocabulary and more about the intent. I’ll wholly grant, though, that “easy” is dangerous, because it mostly gets used to mean “easy for me, because you’re the one doing it”.
Brian H
on 30 May 07Jason,
Were you talking with my boss’s boss just before this or something?
Few more words to add (And I quote from my boss’ boss): Somehow“Somehow can we make the data appear”
Somewhere “The data is stored somewhere, but for now…”
Something “They aren’t sure what they want, just give them something”
Maybe “Maybe the data is stored in Access, but they’re already tired of me asking questions, just….”
Lee
on 30 May 07I wish I had this post a few months ago. I tried to get this across but didn’t manage it, at least not in such a succinct way. Will do nicely for next time :) The linked post will come in handy too, must have missed that somehow.
Rowan
on 30 May 07Depends on what level the application is with regards to the clients business. If the application is a nice to have that enhances some business process, sure a ‘need’ can be pretty quick to turn into a ‘nice to have’.
However when an application get’s closer to something a business relies on / to their core business model with no other manual workarounds or hacks within the system then the ‘we need it to do x, it must do x or it’s useless’ starts coming up more often than not…. no matter what way you spin it the danger turns into the ‘code your - off real quick’ type scenario.
The trick is identifying what’s a core business element and what’s a nice to have enhancement.
Daryl
on 30 May 07“Just” is my personal favorite. It caries with it a sense of simplicity and speed. It packs all of the punch of “easy” and “fast” and can also imply incompetence. I tell my customers that every “just” costs $10,000 minimum.
Gabe
on 31 May 07So what words do you use in place of these?
Tom H.
on 31 May 07Yeah, those comments pop up a lot in your forums, under feature requests. It’s gotta drive you nuts.
Terry Sutton
on 31 May 07My longest design job came from a client who “just” wanted a “simple” invitation done. Well over 12 hours and at last count 8 drafts later, we arrived at an invitation that should have taken an hour.
John S.
on 31 May 07@Gabe: The goal should be eliminating those words and the the phrases that make them dirty, not replacing them.
Justin
on 31 May 07Yeah, I’m not sure I’m buying this as something that can be avoided. Everyone in the room is speaking from their own perspective and using words that have different relative meaning to themselves vs. what it means for others. I say easy all the time. It’s what my brain tells me I should say. Why? - because I think easy is a term that most reasonable people would assume to mean - “not hard.” Uh oh, that’s only relatively meaningful also!
Anonymous Coward
on 31 May 07Can we add “User” to the list of dirty words? As in, some manager says, “Users won’t like it that way,” which means, “I want it this way, not that way.”
Avi
on 01 Jun 07So how can a client, especially a non-tech savy one, communicate with developers / designers better?
Chin
on 01 Jun 07I guess the great thing about having nothing to say is that at this point you can just make up random stuff like this and get away with it. It’s not about words but actions – this post is a load of crap.
Rowan
on 01 Jun 07@Avi et al,
This topic got me thinking enough to write about it. It’s people expressing their desire to acheive something, but not knowing how to express it.
Overtime you help the client to express things to you better, but it’s not the clients job to start off ‘right’ from the get go by not using those words (heck I actually like to hear need vs want, it helps prioritise..).
It’s us (as developers, business analysts) jobs to ellicit those requirements properly from the clients, they’re paying us to be the experts, and part of that is listening and taking what they tell us and translate it into what is needed to be written.
ashok
on 04 Jun 07Yes.. your are right..
This discussion is closed.