Ethan Roberts
Special Guest Blogger

"If you come in on Monday and they ask you to paint the barn red, paint it red. If you come in on Tuesday and they tell you to paint it white, paint it white." -Jerry Fangmann, Smart Solutions

This little piece of advice has saved my career an embarrassing number of times. I'd been a programmer for a few years but Smart Solutions was the first consulting company I'd worked for. A week or so into my first gig Jerry stopped by to see how it was going. He said he wanted to pass on some advice that would help me get used to dealing with clients. The quote above is what he told me. At the time I thought it was cute, maybe a little quaint, but I respect my elders and listened dutifully. <continued>

By the time I'd done the same task 5 different times for a client that didn't know what they wanted I was starting to understand. Say what you want about tech people, we are a passionate lot who spend many of our personal hours continuing to learn and grow in our field. We try to be the best that we can be, to know how to do it "right". "Right" is in quotes because it's subjective to the individual preference of the client. If we build it they won't necessarily come, or they'll come and complain endlessly about how it wasn't exactly what they wanted and it would be so much better if the background was, say, blue.

Which is my next point about painting the barn: The biggest fights I've ever seen (or participated in) weren't about the grand architecture or whether the database could handle server load. I've seen grown men scream at each other about fonts and color schemes and whether it's okay to name a class starting with an "I" if it wasn't a pure interface. These kinds of arguments ultimately come down not to how big the barn should be, but what color it should be. As a consultant it's our job to make the thing work as well as we can, but then let the client decide about the little details that will make them happy every day they use the product. That's our job, not convincing them that we know better (though of course we always do).

I've passed on that piece of advice everywhere I've worked since, and in most places it became a running joke that let us calm down when we were getting frustrated. "How's it going?" "Painting the barn white today.", usually said with a resigned sigh but without anger or frustration. Try it out and see for yourself.

Tomorrow, by the way, my client decided they want it red again. So that's what I'll be doing *sigh*.

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