Porridge and User Requirement

on 04/07/2009

I have been learning healthy diet theory these days, accompanied with some practical experiments. Through the theoretical point of view, it is healthier to have porridge for dinner. This is mainly because individuals usually sleep at night instead of outdoor activities. Therefore, going on a light diet can reduce the burden of most human organs which subsequently makes your body healthier. Then I am falling in love with porridge and kimchi for my dinner day in day out.

Porridge and Kimchi

Because I love it just like I love database technology, I always cook the porridge with my heart and soul. I have developed a considerable number of solutions to make the porridge become more and more delicious, like for instance, embedded with several red dates, plug in with fresh cabbage model and so on. As a result of my constantly hard work and all sorts of prototype tests, integrated with little salt and chicken powder turns out to be the perfect solution eventually, especially with delicate fragrance. I integrated the exact amount of resources at an accurate point in time successfully, provided my high quality product to my high quality client – my LD with my honor, looking forward to the appreciation from LD:)

After LD received my deliverable product, she just mixed it with rich-smelled kimchi, the pure light-fragrance porridge suddenly became into red spicy-sour porridge. One thing much worse is all my efforts were gone with wind.

Me: "This is the special porridge for special you, it is full with love, and the delicate fragrance is the soul of the porridge, but now its' gone."

LD: "What I need is a bowl of porridge which can make me full."

Me: "But what if the porridge with delicate fragrance? Isn't that better?"

LD: "Your porridge is used to adapt my kimchi, it doesn't matter whether it is delicious. Your responsibility is only to cook for porridge, thank you for your porridge."

What else can I say?

Do we have any similar experience like 'Porridge' and 'Kimchi' during the researching phase in a project? Although we work hard with excellent idea on the product, our client is still reckless with it? Although we have tried our best to serve our customers with high quality products, we have not realized that we had not understood our customers’ requirements until the day we deliver our product? However, client is our god, client is the reason we live.

Please do always remember that: There is no mistake of our client!

Anyway, I will have a further discuss with LD in advance before I cook next time, in order to eliminate unnecessary gas, power, water, rice, olive oil, salt, etc and human resource, additionally, the most significant thing is to keep our best image in the mind of our clients:)

Notes:

LD means LeaDer which also means wife.

粥与客户需求

on 03/07/2009

这段时间开始学习健康饮食理论基础,同时也进行了一些结合理论的实践。理论上说,晚餐吃粥比较好,因为普通人在夜间的活动比较少,主要以睡觉为主,所以吃清淡一点的食物能够有效减轻身体各器官在夜间的工作负担,对身体健康有好处。于是,开始迷恋上白粥与韩国泡菜的晚餐。粥与泡菜

因为热爱这个事物,就跟热爱数据库技术一样,所以很用心去熬每一锅粥。为了能让我家LD吃上美味可口的白粥,俺可是费尽了心思,想了好多解决方案来使这锅粥变得更加香滑诱人,例如,往白粥里嵌入几颗补血的红枣,往白粥里添加新鲜的卷心白菜模块等等。经过不懈努力以及各种原型测试,最后,发现往白粥里面集成一些盐和鸡精会让白粥吃起来更加美味可口,粥里面散发出一缕幽幽的清香。于是,俺小心翼翼的掂量着调味剂的分量以及集成到白粥里面的时间点,并且很自豪地把爱心粥产品奉献给口味挑剔的LD大人品尝,并且等待着LD的赞赏:)

LD接过爱心粥产品,然后用筷子夹了一大块味道浓厚的韩国泡菜往爱心粥里面一放,整碗爱心白粥顿时变成一碗鲜红的泡菜酸辣粥,幽幽的清香完全无法抵挡泡菜的酸辣味,辛苦了白天研制出来的爱心粥就这样被糟蹋了。

我连忙跟LD讲解说:“这是我经过长时间特意为您研发出来的爱心粥,在你把泡菜集成进去前,它还飘着幽幽的清香,这可是整碗粥的灵魂啊!可是幽幽的清香现在已经不复存在了!”

LD毫不在意的说:“我需要的只是一碗普通的白粥,能吃饱就可以了。”

我解释说:“飘着幽幽的清香不是更好吗?”

LD答复:“你的粥只是用来适配我的泡菜,粥的味道是否美味并不重要。你把粥熬好就可以了,谢谢您的粥!”

我无言以对。

我们平时在做项目预研的时候是否也会有类似“粥”与“泡菜”的经历?虽然自己花费了很多心思在产品设计上面,但最终却被客户视而不见?虽然自己努力把产品和服务做好,但在交付的时候才发现原来自己没有真正把握客户的需求?无论如何,客户是我们的上帝,也是我们生存的理由,记住:客户永远是对的!

下次熬粥之前,记得问问LD想吃什么粥,免得浪费柴米油盐和人力成本,更重要的是避免影响自己在客户心目中的形象:)