We all bargain something or other, somewhere or else... we have learnt bargaining from our mothers, sisters, grandma’s, teachers, Bosses, colleagues and everyone else who we deal with on a day to day basis. You want your kid to wake up early for school he would ask for a toy, you bargain for a cheaper one. You drop him to school to study the teachers bargain for studies. You want him to be admitted to a school you bargain on price... Now as Software Engineers you face this bargain every moment..
Your Sales guy comes to you and ask for a feature, you bargain on time, he on dates.
You estimate your Project manager bargains on it
You give a Project plan your customer bargains on it.
An 80 yr old man who could not get out of the bed asked his 10 yr old to go and buy stuff from market. Since he was too young to shop, the grandfather told him “Bargain on anything that the shop owner offers”. Kid asked “what is bargain?” Grandfather said “If he tells you the thing is for 10$ you ask for 5$”. The kid went to a shop asked for a video game, the guy came back and showed him one. The kid said “I will pay 5 dollars for this”. Surprised with the kid the shop owner checked his price list found it was 4$ and he was still in profit said “OK, take it for $5” The kid thought for a moment and said “I will pay 2.5 for it”. The pissed of shop keeper said “take it for free”.. on this the kid said “then give me 2”
Everyone in this world bargains and when they bargain they bargain hard... But as Manager’s it is our job to balance the bargain. It is a need not a necessity so when we have to choose we can decide what and how much to bargain. Next time you sit on a chair where you have to bargain as an Engineer, Sales, Customer, Project Manager, CEO or CFO or anyone... bargain:
- On time that will not hurt Quality
- On resources that will cut cost but not Quality
- On schedules that will not hurt the burn-down status of your resources
- On commitments that will not affect your Teams plans and schedules
- On Plans that are over optimistic
- On technologies that can help you build a stable product than a faster product.
- On Quality that can let you sleep with peace
0 comments:
Post a Comment