“The Expert”

I’ve watched this video about 3 times already and I now understand it’s a spoof.  The sad part is that I’ve been in at least 3 of the 5 roles depicted in the video.  More commonly, I find myself in the “Expert” role.  It can be difficult to translate poor requirements that aren’t even fully by the client.  From a customer perspective, I remember when I was getting an IP SAN storage installed and I knew absolutely nothing about storage.  I remember getting mad at my vendor’s expert because I didn’t understand why he needed so much information just to give me a bunch of shared storage.  Who knew.

I’ve also been on the expert side of the table.  I once had a CIO tell me, “Keith, don’t ever let this server go down again and don’t make any changes!”  Yea, I can draw a red line with a green pen.

Most recently, I find myself on project manager side of the table.  I sit between the client and the expert.  I have to try to translate expert speak into client speak.  I also have to try to keep the expert on point and not frustrated with poor client requirements.  I don’t always succeed.