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>> The sacrificial duck kept the meddling manager away from the stuff that was important. The territorial dog analogy is perfect. I've seen parks where they put fake fire hydrants and other features in the dog area so they can feel satisfied without leaving their designated area.
I'd love a exhaustive course on this kind of fakery.
I've also just hidden things that the client has asked removed if I thought they would eventually ask for it again, once they got to using the software. They usually do, and they think I'm a "genius" when I can make these "big" changes in such short periods of time.
Hell, I even tell them I'm going to do it. I'm always very forthright with my clients. But they never remember. They always think I do everything from scratch. I guess because their own developers do, they think we all work the same way.
I worked at a deli during college, and people did this same type of thing on slices. By default, I'd always pick a pretty thin slice. Most people really like thinly sliced meats. The first thing you do is slice once and show them the slice, making sure it fits what they wanted. 99% of the time, people would say "thinner," I would pretend to fiddle with the knob, slice the same thickness, and they'd say "perfect!" I t…
or maybe they don't want to appear rude or finnicky by pointing out that it looks the same?
It is called bikeshedding. People have been using "bike sheds" in software development for years to get project managers off their back about the important stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality
This is about how some managers feel they have to suggest a change, any change, to justify their position.
Bike shedding is excessive discussion in committees/group emails about trivial matters because everyone feels they understand the issue, unlike more complex issues up for discussion.
A story from the time recounts that Piero Soderino, the head of the powerful Florentine Republic, even told the famously irascible Michelangelo that David's nose was much too large. Michelangelo then hid some marble dust in his hand, climbed back up his ladder and pretended to do some more "chiseling" on the offending proboscis. While he did so, he let some marble dust fall from his hand. The pompous Soderino was foo…
Not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but I had a professor who had worked as a designer under Steve Jobs and tried something similar. Steve insisted that a new mouse needed to be just a fraction of a millimetre slimmer so a person's palm was lower and closer to the work surface. They figured he was being an unreasonable "delicate genius" and returned a few days later with the identical mouse and claimed they had reworked it to…
I worked at a deli during college, and people did this same type of thing on slices. By default, I'd always pick a pretty thin slice. Most people really like thinly sliced meats. The first thing you do is slice once and show them the slice, making sure it fits what they wanted. 99% of the time, people would say "thinner," I would pretend to fiddle with the knob, slice the same thickness, and they'd say "perfect!" I t…
Similarly, always give options, subtly worse than the one you want to see picked. See Dan Ariely's books.
Be careful, this is how the Archbishop of Canterbury got picked in 1990. http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/how-george-care... On that occasion the Appointments Committee put forward the names of the Archbishop of York, the favorite of the church leaders but one who had ruffled Mrs. Thatcher's feathers on other issues. To try to encourage his selection, the second candidate was generally regarded as unquali…
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XII#Fournier.27s_...