This video, while hilarious, puts the ‘expert’ not in a good light. It is in fact true that the ‘customer’ is talking completely nonsense, but it’s not her fault. Most time you’ll be dealing with something which 1) has been put there or 2) has a focus on something else and you‘re are the only ‘tool’ to accomplish her goal.
The question is: what’s our goal? Engineering for the engineering’s sake? This is a goal that IMHO must be present in every engineer, this makes us mutate from tools to artists (personally I think that if something happens for its own sake, then that’s art) But this must (IMHO) not be the only one. What we really need as a goal is something anthropocentric: make someone else happy (happier).
The real problem here is not in the customer, but in the ‘expert’. If you really want to have that ‘expert hat’ what you really need to do is understand the very person you have in front, and her needs. Only then you can start talking about ‘technologies’.
The problem with this video is that the customer is asking for something to be done, and the ‘expert/sales-men’ team responds with “hows”, this moves the conversation in the wrong direction.
- “We need you [...] to draw 7 perpendicular lines” - “Could you please explain better what was the process that brought you here?”
If the sales-man stops you because this kind of questions is ‘out of scope’ of the meeting, ask him out, and destroy him to the very last piece of him: he must let you do your job (understand the customer’s needs and take them from want-space to real-space), his job is ensuring that from a sales and customer relation point of view you‘re not ruining your own company strategic plans. Is he also the project manager? Then try to make him reason. He doesn’t? Quit. Now.
wooosh. I had to say it. sorry.