How do you explain to a sales person that programming is really difficult and takes time [closed]

Question

I often work with sales and marketing types that cannot figure out how to use Excel, let alone understand the scope of their requests from a technical perspective. Of course, it would not be fair to expect them to, but that still leaves me with a problem.

What is the best way to show marketing and sales types that they have asked for something that requires a lot of complex programming and some patience?

Could you please share examples of problems and solutions?

Could you please recommend books on this subject?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Break the problem up into as many sub-divided tasks as possible. Provide a per-item estimate in hours beside each one.

When they think of a project as a whole, it seems simple. However, when they see each individual thing that must be done and the number of hours each item will require, it is putting it into terms business people can understand. Suddenly the software solution they want isn't a "black box" to them anymore and they now have some insight into the process.

If you are looking for books I would suggest Software Estimation - Demystifying the Black Art.

Answer 2

The computer will do what you told it to do, not what you want it to do.

Any form of abstractions needed be translated to exact details.

source http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TeachMeToSmoke

Teacher: "It's hard to express ourselves clearly. You're a smoker, right? 
Are you pretty good at it? [Student nods.] 
Let's pretend I'm a man from Mars and you are going to teach me to smoke. 
Do you have a fresh pack? Let's start with that. 
[Takes pack.] OK, now tell me what to do." 


Student: "Tear open the pack."

T: [Tears pack to shreds. Cigarettes fly everywhere.] 
S: "No, no, tear off the top of the pack!" 
T: "OK, sorry, do you have another pack? No? OK, let's just start with this cigarette. [Picks one up.] 
S: "Put it in your mouth." 
T: [Puts whole cigarette in mouth.] 
S: "No, no, just put the end in your mouth!" 
T: "Sorry." [Tears filter off, puts whole filter in mouth.] 
S: "No, no, don't tear the cigarette, just hold it between your lips!" 
T: "Oh, sorry, give me another one." [Places new cig sideways between lips.]

... and so on. You can play the game for a long time. It's hard to give clear instructions, even when you know the domain. Programming will endure for a long long time. -- RonJeffries