Communication Problems

A colleague forwarded me the following article from FoxNews.com: FBI Urged to Scrap Computer Overhaul. As I read the article I was reminded of similar, albeit smaller in scale, situations that I've seen over the years. Although I'm not personally familiar with this project, I'll bet the problems result from poor communication. Issues like this happen when the vendor doesn't take the time to really understand what the customer is saying about requirements, but makes assumptions based on perceptions. Likewise, the customer doesn't take the time to understand what the vendor is saying about its system's capabilities. Both sides lose.

One of the missions for those of us in the Information Technology field is to remind our users of their responsibility to clearly communicate their needs. We have to help them do that. We also have to press the vendors about key parts of their solutions (customizations or otherwise) and take the time to learn what the systems really do before we implement them. One way to do this is to attend a training class prior to selecting a product. A training class is far more useful than a sales pitch.