Automation (Score 2)

I have a conversation like this with my business folks at least once a year. Here's how I explain it to them:

It's called "Writing software" or "coding," but at it's core, what it's really about is automating a business process. When you look at it as automating a business process, your work as a developer is dependant on the business process being well designed and equally well described by the SMEs. After all, you can't automate something that doesn't exist yet, right?

Roughly speaking, our bugs fall into two categories

1. A developer's misunderstanding of the tool they're using.
2. A developer's misunderstanding of the business process they're automating.

In my world, most bugs reported fall under #2. (We have a well seasoned team) Most business folks (who are acting as our SMEs) don't like to be asked too many questions and PREFER that the developer guess at what they want in the initial implementation. When we guess wrong, they get mad.

This used to get under my skin, but it really doesn't anymore.

A simple "you got what you asked for" usually moves the conversation along to the part where I force them to describe exactly what they want in the bug report before I'll fix it. A friendly reminder that if they had provided those details up front the bug wouldn't exist usually signals the end of the meeting.