Nobody loves the bearer of good news

©Joe Armstrong

Nobody loves the bearer of good news, I said.

Haven't you got that wrong, wasn't it bad news?

Technology transfer, in particularly in the fast-moving high-tech computer-telecoms world is often characterized by rapid paradigm shifts and greatly improved ways of doing things.

So here's the good news, we've found a new way of doing things that's a zillion times better than the old way - the bad news is that you have to write off your old multi-billion dollar investments in hardware and software because it can all now be done by some ten dollar zingo.

So what happens when you are the bearer of good news?

We can do what you want with 10% of the effort and deliver in nine months instead of two years.

The bearer of such good news is often surprised at the reaction. Since I have often been a bearer of good news let me tell you some of things that do happen and some of the things that don't happen:

What I'd like to happen is that the recipient of the good news would say:

• Reaction 1 - Joy. Joe you're a genius - this is wonderful we will immediately stop our current of of working and make use of the new wonder gizmo.

But this reaction is the stuff of dreams and has never been observed in practice. More common is one of the following:

• Reaction 2 - Disbelief. Now usually nobody actually says anything. They don't actually say This guy has got kangaroos jumping around in his top paddock but they think it. Because they don't actually say anything the bearer of good news can often be mislead into thinking that they're sales pitch for the new wonder technology has been well received - not. Typically the recipient smiles but doesn't say much (a typical strategy for dealing with madmen)
• Reaction 3 - Anger. Anger is more difficult to disguise. Sometimes there are explosive remonstrations, in less extreme cases a tightening of the facial muscles, fists clenched, white knuckles etc. So what is the source of the anger? I have been working in this field for 12 years and am a world expect and this young jerk thinks he knows it all - idiot, bloody waste of time.
• Reaction 4 - Couldn't care. Not my problem. Neither anger or disbelief. The recipient is does not disbelieve the good news, in fact they are inclined to believe what you say. Neither are they angry. It's just that they donät see the relevance of what you're doing to what they are doing or what they want to do. Possibly they thing Interesting, useful maybe, but how does it relate to the particular nasty bug I've got in Microsoft zobar version 17.34?.

All the above patterns of behavior are extremely common. So what can the bearer of good news do to make the news go down better?

The conceptual gap

So where do we go wrong in bearing the god news?

• Rule 1 If the mind-set of the innovator and the mind-set of the customer are too far apart then the two people will not be able to talk to each other

Here's a example of this:

A few years ago we were approached by a man with an acute and (as he thought) difficult problem. Two members of the computer science laboratory were dispatched post haste to try and solve the problem. This is what happened:

• The customer explained his problem.
• The CSL people listened to him and outlined their solution. The result was an immediate case of reaction 3 - disbelief.

Years later, and it has taken me years to realize this I realize that the problem lay in the conceptual gap between the mind-sets of the people involved.

As it happened, we got the job (I'll tell you why later) and as the job progressed we learnt the reason behind the disbelief.

What we didn't know was that the man with the problem had tried unsuccessfully to find a solution to his problem and had gone to several different people in his search for a solution. He'd always got answers like

It'll take 24 man months with a delivery time of 9 months to a year.

The answer he got from us was a shrug of the shoulders a smile and

two weeks for a prototype - then maybe an extra month to productify it.

The conceptual gap between the reply that he expected , 24 man months, and the reply he received 6 man weeks was so great that he could not believe the offer. He went into disbelief mode smiling and not saying much.

[We got the job, remember he was desperate - we were free and what the hell if we failed he'd not lost anything - we did the job delivered on time and the day was saved (more comments later)]

Lessons learnt.

• Lesson 1 Presenting an honest appraisal of the effort required to do the job is not always the best way to get the job. If the conceptual gap is too big you won't be believed and you won't get the job.

  So what should we do here. The crucial point is to get inside the customers head and find out two things, firstly how much effort they think the job will take and secondly when they think it can be delivered.

  In our example our man thought the work would take 24 man-months and would have a 9 months delivery time. We thought 6 man weeks. A credible offer might have been 6 man-months with a 5 month delivery (but if we work really hard 4 months). He might just buy this if we don't over-sell how easy it is.

  If you have a problem with your conscience here remember that you should always tell the truth but you are not obliged to tell all the truth. So if your estimate of the job is 6 man weeks and you say 5 man-months, possible less and if your intention is not to screw the customer then fine.

• Lesson 2 Don't belittle the problem. By that I mean even if you think the problem is easy (trivial) don't ever say so. This is insulting to the customer. Our man thought the job would take 24 man-months. A smile, a shrug of the shoulder and a quick and dirty estimate of 6 man-weeks can be interpreted as another way of saying Look I know much more about your problem than you do, I'm a smart cookie and you're a dumbo and this leads to reaction 4 - anger.

  This is why they say never let your your technical guys talk to the customers.

  I have, of course broken the rule of lesson two on several occasions and it has caused me no end of trouble. The first time I was young and inexperienced. In two weeks I solved a problem that had occupied one Professor, and his research group in a couple of years work and had generated a considerable body of papers. They were certainly not pleased when I announced that the problem was "trivial" and that "all you had to do was twist the problem a bit and look at things in a new way" and then it was easy. Boy did I suffer from that one. Almost 18 months of problems and battles ensued. Did I learn? - no way. I had of course expected reaction 1 (Joy).

  And then there was the time I told European Space Agency that six people had built all the software for a satellite control system (The six were fictitious, invented to the disguise the fact that one and a half people had done the job)...

  And then there was AXE-N (Mike and I told 'em) - were we popular? I'll leave you to guess the answer!