[kernelbandwidth]

Yes, this. One of the big things I talk about with sales is the difference between changing a priority for a customer vs. adding distinct new things. As a recent example, a client wants better and faster feedback on the trial they're conducting (we're in the med-tech space), and we've already got a new dashboard designed and on our product roadmap. I'm more than happy to prioritize that over other product pieces if it'll get us the contract, because we're already going to do it, we're only changing the 'when'.

On the other hand, when they ask for something off the roadmap, we get into more complex issues (is this market-demand data, or custom work?) Particularly for grunt-level custom work (say, adding a support for tracking data on a niche wearable device that we don't currently support) there's a lot more questions that follow.

One of the most insidious of the latter, IMO, is that if it's just for one contract, then we're either hiring contractors/outsources (expensive, high management overhead), hiring new engineers (risky to grow headcount on a whim), or redirecting resources to tasks that are likely to have both lower ROI and provide lower growth for the re-tasked engineer. At our small size and need for high-quality people, I consider this to be a real cost too.

[jrs235]

We (I) feel these same things.

>when they ask for something off the roadmap

Then we also get side tracked and lose focus. Leadership and management expend too much energy trying to figure out what to do. Then they want estimates from the developers so they can figure out an estimated ROI. But they rarely seem to worry about the true income potential, focusing mostly on just the initial development cost.

Pursue it? Don't pursue it? If we do, how will we? Will we be >hiring contractors/outsources (expensive, high management overhead), hiring new engineers (risky to grow headcount on a whim), or redirecting resources to tasks that are likely to have both lower ROI and provide lower growth for the re-tasked engineer.

Then is it really surprising that this lack of focus and discipline trickles down to those doing the work and the work itself? Technical debt in the making. It starts at the top.

[kernelbandwidth]

Absolutely. A brief story on tech debt from the top:

One of the more frustrating things I've experienced is when I got push-back for implementing more project management process (we have a very light process, but when I took over it was sticky-notes-on-the-desk level). The complaint was "we can't slow down development to do more process". Very through-the-looking-glass, as I, the Engineer, was arguing for more management process and Leadership wanted less.

But of course, accurate estimates were needed, just, you know, without making measurements. I implemented some process anyway. We actually increased development speed from less churn and lowered communicated (consult docs before breaking someone's flow), improved estimates, and we've been able to better contain our tech debt.

[Bartweiss]

> Very through-the-looking-glass, as I, the Engineer, was arguing for more management process and Leadership wanted less.

I suspect you could go a long way with the heuristic "If engineering asks for more process, always give it to them."

It's not flawless, but it's like hearing Ron Paul call for a new regulation - when a request is that out of character, you should usually suspect that there's some good motivation.